On Thursday evening, while unconfirmed reports spread concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her words rang true for numerous observers. It is one of the broadcasters where there exists grounded and mostly dependable reporting – especially during crises like the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation Amid a Corporate Battle
Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious position as two huge media corporations vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has turned into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
The Additional Factor: Political Influence
The network's predicament is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to like that suitor 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 placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of Further Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That arrangement could set up CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu stated.
The Core Challenge and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome in this situation, the bigger problem endures.
“What we have now is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be tools in the most recent merger game.
