On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled regarding 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.
While it is by no means a perfect news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where there exists grounded and largely dependable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations such as the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State During a Business Struggle
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two huge media empires vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in many years of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
A Further Factor: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges 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 a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of Further Instability
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That structure could pave the way for CNN for another sale. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Issue and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the underlying crisis remains.
“What we have now is a very anti-democratic system, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN must not be tools in the most recent corporate chess match.
