Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her words resonated to many. It stands as one of the outlets where there exists fact-based and mostly dependable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations such as the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation Amid a Business Struggle
However the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a uncertain position as two giant media empires battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has become part of a major game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses 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 explained.
The Complicating Factor: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is further muddied by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to like that bidder 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, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
A Future of Further Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That arrangement could position CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Problem and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the bigger problem persists.
“Our current system is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Measures that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are essential for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the most recent corporate chess match.
