On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a impeccable news source, her statement resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the outlets where there exists grounded and mostly reliable reporting – notably during fast-moving events such as the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State Amid a Corporate Tug-of-War
But CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two giant media corporations vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a major game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“It gets presented as a business story with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Factor: The Former President
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
An Outcome of More Instability
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That arrangement could set up CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Issue and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the larger issue persists.
“The present media landscape is a very system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pieces in the latest merger game.
