On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a flawless news source, her message seemed accurate to many. It remains one of the outlets where one can locate fact-based and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations such as the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position During a Business Tug-of-War
But CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two giant media conglomerates compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has been drawn into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Element: Political Influence
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to favor that suitor 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, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
A Future of More Instability
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That structure could set up CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice 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 contested by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Challenge and a Path Forward
Whatever happens in this situation, the larger issue persists.
“The present media landscape is a very anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can address it.
Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Policies that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pawns in the latest corporate chess match.
