This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her statement rang true for numerous observers. It is one of the organizations where one can locate fact-based and largely reliable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events such as the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Situation During a Business Tug-of-War
However the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious state as two huge media corporations battle over 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 business acquisition, rather than as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of regulatory actions,” noted 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 – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a larger point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Element: The Former President
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires 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 appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to prefer that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Possibility of Continued Instability
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That structure could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Challenge and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the larger issue persists.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Policies that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are essential for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN cannot be tools in the newest merger game.
