On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message seemed accurate for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where there exists fact-based and generally reliable reporting – notably during crises such as the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation Amid a High-Stakes Battle
But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious position as two huge media empires battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has become part of a major game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“It gets presented as a business story with key players as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
A Further Layer: Political Influence
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is led 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 installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
A Possibility of Continued Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix wins, 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 pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Challenge and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome in this situation, the bigger problem persists.
“What we have now is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a healthy democracy.
Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN cannot be tools in the newest corporate chess match.
