On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation concerning a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her statement resonated to many. It stands as one of the organizations where you can find grounded and mostly dependable reporting – notably during breaking news situations like the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a Corporate Struggle
However the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious situation as two massive media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in many years of policy decisions,” said 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 – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Layer: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds 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, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
An Outcome of Further Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That setup could pave the way for CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Problem and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the bigger problem remains.
“The present media landscape is a very anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN must not be tools in the latest merger game.
