On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Even though it is by no means a perfect news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It is one of the broadcasters where you can find grounded and mostly reliable reporting – notably during fast-moving events like the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Situation During a Corporate Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two giant media empires vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the destiny of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with roots in many years of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Additional Layer: The Former President
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to prefer that suitor 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, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.
A Future of Further Instability
Notably, 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 not exactly a safe harbor. That arrangement could position CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
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 stated that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Issue and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the larger issue remains.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pawns in the latest corporate chess match.
