On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message seemed accurate to many. It stands as one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and largely dependable reporting – especially during fast-moving events such as the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Situation During a High-Stakes Struggle
Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain state as two giant media corporations compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of business acquisition, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“It gets presented as a business story with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Factor: The Former President
The network's predicament is further muddied by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to prefer that suitor 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, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
A Future of Continued Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That setup could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Problem and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the bigger problem persists.
“What we have now is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the newest acquisition battle.
