This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a flawless news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where one can locate reality-based and generally dependable reporting – particularly during crises such as the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position Amid a Corporate Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two massive media corporations battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, not as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Factor: Political Influence
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to prefer that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
A Future of Further Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That setup could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu argued.
The Core Problem and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome in this situation, the larger issue remains.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are vital for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pawns in the most recent merger game.
