This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the broadcasters where one can locate fact-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – especially during fast-moving events such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State During a Corporate Tug-of-War
However CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two huge media empires battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“It gets presented as a business story with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Additional Element: The Former President
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to prefer that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
An Outcome of Further Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, 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 not exactly a guarantee of stability. That setup could pave the way for CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
According to Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu stated.
The Bigger Issue and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome in this situation, the bigger problem endures.
“What we have now is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be tools in the newest merger game.
