On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although it is by no means a perfect news source, her statement resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the outlets where there exists grounded and mostly reliable reporting – notably during fast-moving events such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation During a High-Stakes Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two huge media corporations vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with influential figures as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
The Additional Element: The Former President
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to like 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.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.
A Future of Continued Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That arrangement could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Core Problem and a Path Forward
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the underlying crisis persists.
“Our current system is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN must not be tools in the most recent corporate chess match.
