This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her statement seemed accurate for a lot of people. It stands as one of the outlets where you can find reality-based and generally dependable reporting – notably during breaking news situations like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation During a Business Battle
But CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain position as two massive media conglomerates vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of business acquisition, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It is often framed as a business story with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
A Further Factor: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to prefer that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
A Future of More Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That setup could set up CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Challenge and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the bigger problem endures.
“What we have now is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are vital for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pawns in the latest corporate chess match.
