This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a flawless news source, her statement resonated to many. It stands as one of the broadcasters where you can find grounded and generally trustworthy reporting – notably during crises such as the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State Amid a High-Stakes Battle
However the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two huge media corporations vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with key players as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
A Further Layer: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to prefer that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
A Future of More Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That setup could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Issue and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the bigger problem persists.
“Our current system is a very system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Measures that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be tools in the newest corporate chess match.
