Late Thursday, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a impeccable news source, her words rang true for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where there exists fact-based and largely reliable reporting – notably during crises like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a High-Stakes Battle
However the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two massive media corporations compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has turned into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than 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 regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a larger point.
“It is often framed as a financial tale with influential figures as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
The Additional Layer: The Former President
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to favor that company more. For one thing, it is run 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 right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Future of Further Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That arrangement could position CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Issue and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the underlying crisis remains.
“Our current system is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the newest acquisition battle.
