This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a Corporate Tug-of-War
However CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two massive media empires vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of business acquisition, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with origins in many years of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
The Additional Factor: The Former President
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is led 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 conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
An Outcome of More Instability
It is important to note, if Netflix is successful, 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 arrangement could position CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should block both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Core Challenge and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome in this situation, the bigger problem endures.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN must not be tools in the latest merger game.
