This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread concerning the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her words rang true to many. It remains one of the outlets where one can locate grounded and generally reliable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events such as the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position Amid a Corporate Tug-of-War
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two massive media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, not as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The speculation about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a larger point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Factor: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal 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 protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
An Outcome of Continued Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Challenge and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens in this situation, the bigger problem endures.
“What we have now is a very system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pieces in the latest corporate chess match.
