This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation regarding an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her statement resonated for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where one can locate grounded and mostly dependable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations such as the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State During a Corporate Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious state as two giant media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a larger point.
“It is often framed as a financial tale with influential figures as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Additional Element: The Former President
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation 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 protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to prefer that bidder more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Future of Continued Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Problem and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the underlying crisis persists.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the latest corporate chess match.
