On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and mostly reliable reporting – especially during breaking news situations like the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a Business Tug-of-War
But the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious state as two huge media conglomerates battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has turned into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The speculation about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
A Further Layer: Political Influence
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive suspension 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 criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to prefer that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of More Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That setup could pave the way for CNN for another sale. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Issue and a Path Forward
Whatever happens in this situation, the larger issue remains.
“What we have now is a very anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are essential for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the latest acquisition battle.
