On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a impeccable news source, her words rang true for numerous observers. It stands as one of the outlets where one can locate grounded and mostly dependable reporting – notably during crises such as the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a Business Struggle
However the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two massive media conglomerates vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Additional Layer: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
An Outcome of Continued Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That arrangement could set up CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Challenge and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the bigger problem remains.
“What we have now is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are essential for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pawns in the latest acquisition battle.
