On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled concerning the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her words seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where you can find reality-based and mostly reliable reporting – notably during breaking news situations such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation During a Corporate Tug-of-War
But CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two huge media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“It gets presented as a business story with influential figures as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Additional Layer: Political Influence
This situation is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is run 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 placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
A Possibility of Continued Instability
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That setup could position CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu argued.
The Core Issue and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome in this situation, the larger issue persists.
“What we have now is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the most recent corporate chess match.
