Late Thursday, as rumors swirled concerning the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where you can find reality-based and generally dependable reporting – notably during breaking news situations such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position Amid a Corporate Tug-of-War
However CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two huge media conglomerates battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with key players as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Additional Element: Political Influence
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires 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 support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
A Possibility of Continued Instability
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That setup could set up CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Problem and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the bigger problem endures.
“The present media landscape is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist 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 fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be tools in the most recent acquisition battle.
