On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation concerning the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message seemed accurate for numerous observers. It is one of the organizations where there exists grounded and mostly trustworthy reporting – especially during crises such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a Business Tug-of-War
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two huge media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a major game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with influential figures as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Layer: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to like that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
An Outcome of Further Uncertainty
It is important to note, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That setup could set up CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Core Problem and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens in this situation, the bigger problem remains.
“Our current system is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pieces in the newest corporate chess match.
