Late Thursday, as rumors swirled regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a flawless news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the broadcasters where you can find grounded and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during crises like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
Yet the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two massive media conglomerates battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“It gets presented as a business story with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Layer: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to prefer that bidder more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
A Future of More Instability
Significantly, if Netflix wins, 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 not exactly a guarantee of stability. That structure could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Problem and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the bigger problem endures.
“The present media landscape is a very system hostile to democracy, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm 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 support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pawns in the latest corporate chess match.
