This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her message rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and largely dependable reporting – especially during fast-moving events such as the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a High-Stakes Battle
But the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two giant media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with influential figures as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
The Additional Factor: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to favor that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
An Outcome of More Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for another sale. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu stated.
The Bigger Challenge and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome in this situation, the bigger problem endures.
“What we have now is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pawns in the newest acquisition battle.
