On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message resonated to many. It remains one of the broadcasters where there exists grounded and generally dependable reporting – especially during fast-moving events like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position During a Corporate Battle
However CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two massive media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“It gets presented as a business story with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
A Further Factor: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to prefer 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 conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
A Future of Continued Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could position CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Core Problem and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the larger issue endures.
“The present media landscape is a very system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the latest merger game.
