This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message seemed accurate for numerous observers. It remains one of the broadcasters where one can locate grounded and generally trustworthy reporting – especially during crises like the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State Amid a High-Stakes Tug-of-War
But CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain state as two massive media corporations battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with influential figures as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
The Additional Layer: The Former President
This situation is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
A Possibility of More Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That setup could set up CNN for another sale. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Problem and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the larger issue endures.
“The present media landscape is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are vital for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pawns in the newest merger game.
