This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words resonated for numerous observers. It stands as one of the organizations where there exists fact-based and generally reliable reporting – especially during fast-moving events such as the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State During a Corporate Tug-of-War
However CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a uncertain position as two giant media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
A Further Factor: The Former President
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to like that suitor 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 installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of More Instability
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 safe harbor. That setup could pave the way for CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Challenge and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the larger issue endures.
“Our current system is a very anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial 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 highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN must not be pieces in the latest acquisition battle.
