This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the outlets where you can find fact-based and mostly dependable reporting – particularly during crises like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position Amid a High-Stakes Tug-of-War
But CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious state as two massive media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has turned into a major game of business acquisition, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with influential figures as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
A Further Element: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is further muddied by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Recall the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will shield him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Future of Continued Instability
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could position CNN for a future 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 harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Bigger Challenge and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome in this situation, the bigger problem persists.
“What we have now is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that strengthen independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are essential for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be tools in the newest acquisition battle.
