On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although it is by no means a flawless news source, her message seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where you can find reality-based and mostly dependable reporting – notably during fast-moving events such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position During a High-Stakes Struggle
However the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious state as two huge media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
The Additional Layer: The Former President
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of Continued Instability
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by regulators,” Wu stated.
The Bigger Issue and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the larger issue remains.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN must not be pawns in the most recent merger game.
