Late Thursday, while unconfirmed reports spread concerning a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a flawless news source, her words seemed accurate to many. It is one of the outlets where you can find grounded and largely trustworthy reporting – notably during crises such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position During a Business Tug-of-War
But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two giant media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“It gets presented as a business story with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Factor: The Former President
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to favor that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
An Outcome of Continued Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That arrangement could position CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens in this situation, the bigger problem persists.
“What we have now is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Policies that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be tools in the most recent merger game.
