This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a flawless news source, her statement resonated for numerous observers. It remains one of the broadcasters where you can find grounded and mostly reliable reporting – notably during fast-moving events such as the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position During a Business Struggle
However CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious situation as two massive media conglomerates vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important 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 added.
The Complicating Layer: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to prefer that company 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 historic news network.
An Outcome of More Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That setup could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
If you ask Timothy Wu, much 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 harmful to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Challenge and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the larger issue persists.
“Our current system is a highly anti-democratic system, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pawns in the most recent acquisition battle.
