This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a flawless news source, her statement resonated to many. It remains one of the outlets where there exists fact-based and largely dependable reporting – notably during breaking news situations such as the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation During a Corporate Battle
But the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a uncertain position as two massive media corporations compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has turned into a major game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with roots in many years of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“It is often framed as a business story with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Factor: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to like that suitor 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, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
A Future of Further Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu stated.
The Core Challenge and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens in this situation, the bigger problem endures.
“Our current system is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Measures that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are vital for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be tools in the latest acquisition battle.
