This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her words seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where one can locate grounded and mostly dependable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events like the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a Corporate Battle
But CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two massive media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The speculation about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It is often framed as a financial tale with key players as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
A Further Factor: The Former President
This situation is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to prefer that bidder more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
An Outcome of More Instability
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That structure could set up CNN for a future 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 wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Core Issue and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the larger issue remains.
“Our current system is a very anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pieces in the latest corporate chess match.
