This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although it is by no means a flawless news source, her words rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the broadcasters where you can find reality-based and mostly dependable reporting – especially during fast-moving events such as the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a Corporate Struggle
Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two giant media empires vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has turned into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of policy decisions,” said 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? – overlooks a larger point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
A Further Element: The Former President
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory 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 criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to like 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, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.
A Future of More Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That setup could position CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Challenge and a Path Forward
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the underlying crisis persists.
“What we have now is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Policies that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the most recent acquisition battle.
