Late Thursday, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her message seemed accurate to many. It remains one of the broadcasters where you can find grounded and largely trustworthy reporting – particularly during crises such as the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a Corporate Battle
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two massive media conglomerates vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“It gets presented as a business story with key players as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Factor: Political Influence
This situation is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, 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 Possibility of Continued Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That arrangement could position 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 wrote recently that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Problem and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the larger issue endures.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the newest corporate chess match.
