On Thursday evening, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her message resonated to many. It stands as one of the outlets where you can find reality-based and largely reliable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position During a Business Tug-of-War
However the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious state as two massive media conglomerates vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has turned into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with origins in decades of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a larger point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with key players as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Element: Donald Trump
This situation is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to like that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of Further Instability
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That setup could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Bigger Issue and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the larger issue persists.
“The present media landscape is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Is this likely 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 doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in a handful of 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 such as CNN cannot be tools in the most recent merger game.
