This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her message rang true for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – notably during breaking news situations such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position During a Corporate Struggle
However CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two huge media conglomerates battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the destiny of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with origins in decades of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a larger point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with key players as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Element: The Former President
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
An Outcome of Further Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a separate entity. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That structure could position CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Problem and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the bigger problem endures.
“Our current system is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pawns in the newest corporate chess match.
