This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a impeccable news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It is one of the broadcasters where one can locate fact-based and largely dependable reporting – especially during breaking news situations such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a Business Tug-of-War
However the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain state as two huge media corporations compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future 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 is yet another example of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with key players as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
A Further Layer: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in 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.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
A Future of Further Instability
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That structure could position CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu argued.
The Core Problem and a Path Forward
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the larger issue endures.
“What we have now is a highly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pawns in the newest corporate chess match.
