On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her words rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the outlets where one can locate reality-based and largely trustworthy reporting – particularly during breaking news situations like the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a Corporate Battle
But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two massive media corporations compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“It is often framed as a financial tale with key players as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Factor: Political Influence
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary 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. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Future of Continued Uncertainty
It is important to note, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Problem and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens in this situation, the bigger problem endures.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Initiatives that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are essential for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN must not be tools in the latest corporate chess match.
