Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her statement seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where there exists grounded and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during crises such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation During a Corporate Tug-of-War
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two giant media corporations vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with origins in decades of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
A Further Element: Political Influence
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
A Future of Continued Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for another sale. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Challenge and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the bigger problem persists.
“Our current system is a very anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and different 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? Change is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Policies that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN cannot be tools in the most recent acquisition battle.
