This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled concerning the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her message rang true to many. It is one of the organizations where one can locate grounded and largely dependable reporting – especially during breaking news situations like the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position During a Corporate Tug-of-War
However CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious state as two giant media corporations battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has turned into a major game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Additional Element: The Former President
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds 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, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
An Outcome of Continued Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That structure could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Problem and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the underlying crisis persists.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – dating back to 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 Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pieces in the newest merger game.
