Late Thursday, as rumors swirled regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a perfect news source, her message seemed accurate to many. It is one of the outlets where there exists grounded and largely reliable reporting – especially during crises such as the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Situation During a Corporate Struggle
However the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two massive media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in many years of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
The Additional Layer: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
A Future of More Uncertainty
It is important to note, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That setup could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Issue and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome in this situation, the underlying crisis persists.
“What we have now is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pieces in the most recent acquisition battle.
