On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her message seemed accurate to many. It stands as one of the outlets where you can find reality-based and generally dependable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations like the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a Corporate Battle
But the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two giant media empires vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with key players as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Element: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to like that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
A Possibility of Continued Instability
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That structure could set up CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
According to 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 detrimental to the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Challenge and a Path Forward
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the bigger problem remains.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the latest merger game.
