This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though it is by no means a flawless news source, her message seemed accurate for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where one can locate grounded and generally reliable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position Amid a Corporate Battle
But CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious situation as two giant media conglomerates battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems 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 – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with key players as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
The Additional Element: Political Influence
This situation is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring 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 a factor in why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to prefer that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-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 historic news network.
An Outcome of More Instability
Significantly, 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 safe harbor. That arrangement could position CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Issue and a Path Forward
Whatever happens in this situation, the bigger problem persists.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the latest corporate chess match.
