On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her message seemed accurate for a lot of people. It stands as one of the outlets where one can locate grounded and largely trustworthy reporting – especially during crises such as the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a Business Struggle
Yet the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two massive media corporations compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a major game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It gets presented as a business story with key players as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Layer: The Former President
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to like that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of Further Instability
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That structure could pave the way for CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu stated.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Path Forward
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the underlying crisis endures.
“Our current system is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN must not be tools in the newest merger game.
