This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled about an incident 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 resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and mostly dependable reporting – notably during crises like the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a Business Struggle
Yet the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two giant media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with roots in many years of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a larger point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
A Further Layer: Political Influence
This situation is further muddied 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 the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect 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 hostile bid.
He has grounds to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Possibility of More Turmoil
It is important to note, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That structure could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Problem and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the larger issue endures.
“What we have now is a very anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Policies that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN cannot be tools in the most recent corporate chess match.
