On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation concerning a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message resonated to many. It stands as one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and generally reliable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events such as the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State During a High-Stakes Tug-of-War
Yet the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious position as two giant media empires vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the destiny of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“It gets presented as a business story with key players as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Element: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Future of Further Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could position CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be challenged by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome in this situation, the bigger problem remains.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pieces in the latest merger game.
