On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled concerning the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the outlets where you can find fact-based and largely dependable reporting – especially during breaking news situations such as the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a Corporate Battle
Yet CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable 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 been drawn into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The speculation about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a larger point.
“It is often framed as a financial tale with key players as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Additional Element: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
An Outcome of More Instability
It is important to note, if Netflix is successful, 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 secure position. That arrangement could set up CNN for another sale. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Bigger Problem and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the bigger problem endures.
“Our current system is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are vital for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN cannot be tools in the most recent acquisition battle.
