This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her message rang true for numerous observers. It stands as one of the organizations where one can locate fact-based and generally reliable reporting – notably during crises such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
However CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious situation as two massive media corporations compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with key players as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Layer: Political Influence
This situation is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to favor that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of Further Turmoil
It is important to note, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That arrangement could set up CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Fundamental Issue and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the bigger problem endures.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Measures that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN cannot be tools in the most recent corporate chess match.
