This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a flawless news source, her statement resonated to many. It is one of the outlets where one can locate grounded and mostly trustworthy reporting – notably during crises such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position Amid a Business Tug-of-War
But the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious state as two giant media conglomerates vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with origins in many years of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with key players as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
A Further Layer: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is further muddied by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
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 clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
A Possibility of More Instability
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That structure could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Problem and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the underlying crisis endures.
“Our current system is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pieces in the latest merger game.
