This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a flawless news source, her words resonated to many. It is one of the broadcasters where you can find reality-based and mostly reliable reporting – notably during crises such as the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State During a Corporate Tug-of-War
Yet the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two huge media corporations compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has turned into a major game of business acquisition, not as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“It gets presented as a business story with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Layer: Political Influence
This situation is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to like that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of Continued Instability
Notably, if Netflix is successful, 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 far from a safe harbor. That structure could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Problem and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the larger issue persists.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the newest acquisition battle.
