Late Thursday, as rumors swirled concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her message seemed accurate to many. It is one of the outlets where there exists fact-based and mostly dependable reporting – notably during breaking news situations such as the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State Amid a Corporate Battle
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two massive media empires vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has turned into 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 roots in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Layer: The Former President
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to prefer that bidder 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 placed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
An Outcome of Continued Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That structure could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu stated.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Path Forward
Whatever happens in this situation, the bigger problem remains.
“What we have now is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pawns in the latest acquisition battle.
