On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her statement seemed accurate to many. It is one of the broadcasters where one can locate fact-based and mostly dependable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
Yet the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two huge media corporations vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with influential figures as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
A Further Element: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to like that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of Continued Instability
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That structure could set up CNN for another sale. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Problem and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the bigger problem endures.
“What we have now is a highly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pawns in the most recent acquisition battle.
