On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, noting the confusion and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her words seemed accurate to many. It stands as one of the broadcasters where there exists fact-based and mostly dependable reporting – notably during breaking news situations such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position Amid a Business Struggle
But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain state as two huge media conglomerates battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The speculation about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with key players as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Additional Layer: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis 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.
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 Continued Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could position CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu stated.
The Core Challenge and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the underlying crisis endures.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Policies that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pieces in the latest corporate chess match.
