On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her message seemed accurate for numerous observers. It is one of the outlets where one can locate grounded and mostly dependable reporting – notably during crises like the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation During a Corporate Tug-of-War
But the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious state as two giant media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
A Further Layer: The Former President
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to like that company more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of Continued Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That setup could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Challenge and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution 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 noted. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the newest merger game.
