On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation concerning a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her words rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where you can find reality-based and generally trustworthy reporting – particularly during crises such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Situation During a Corporate Struggle
But the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious state as two massive media corporations battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with influential figures as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Layer: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’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. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to favor that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
An Outcome of Further Instability
It is important to note, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That setup could set up CNN for another sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Problem and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the underlying crisis remains.
“The present media landscape is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in too few hands are not only possible – 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 newest corporate chess match.
