This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her words seemed accurate to many. It is one of the outlets where there exists fact-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – notably during breaking news situations such as the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position During a Corporate Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious position as two massive media corporations battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has become part of a major game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“It gets presented as a business story with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Layer: Political Influence
This situation is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to favor 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.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
An Outcome of More Instability
Notably, if Netflix is successful, 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 hardly a secure position. That structure could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Challenge and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the larger issue endures.
“Our current system is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pieces in the most recent corporate chess match.
