On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the broadcasters where there exists grounded and largely trustworthy reporting – notably during crises such as the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position Amid a Business Tug-of-War
However the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two massive media empires vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with key players as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Layer: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled 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 editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Future of Further Instability
Notably, if Netflix wins, 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 far from a secure position. That setup could set up CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Core Challenge and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the underlying crisis remains.
“The present media landscape is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Policies that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pawns in the newest corporate chess match.
