On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her words seemed accurate to many. It is one of the outlets where you can find grounded and largely trustworthy reporting – notably during breaking news situations like the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State During a Corporate Struggle
Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious state as two massive media conglomerates vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a major game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with origins in many years of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with influential figures as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Layer: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges 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 negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to like that company more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
A Future of Continued Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. 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 a future sale. There is no finish line.
According to Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the underlying crisis endures.
“Our current system is a very anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be tools in the most recent merger game.
