Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words rang true for numerous observers. It stands as one of the organizations where one can locate reality-based and generally reliable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations like the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position Amid a Corporate Tug-of-War
But the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious state as two huge media corporations compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with key players as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Layer: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
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 tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, 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.
An Outcome of More Instability
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That structure could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu argued.
The Core Issue and a Path Forward
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the bigger problem remains.
“What we have now is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN must not be tools in the latest corporate chess match.
