This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a flawless news source, her statement seemed accurate for a lot of people. It stands as one of the outlets where you can find reality-based and mostly dependable reporting – notably during fast-moving events such as the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State During a Business Struggle
But CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain state as two huge media corporations compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“It gets presented as a business story with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Layer: The Former President
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to prefer 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, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
An Outcome of Further Turmoil
It is important to note, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That arrangement could position CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Problem and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the bigger problem persists.
“What we have now is a highly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN must not be tools in the latest acquisition battle.
