This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled concerning the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a flawless news source, her statement rang true to many. It stands as one of the organizations where there exists fact-based and mostly dependable reporting – especially during fast-moving events such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position Amid a Business Struggle
But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two massive media empires vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The speculation about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with influential figures as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
A Further Factor: The Former President
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to prefer that company 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 editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
An Outcome of More Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That setup could position CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Problem and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the larger issue remains.
“What we have now is a highly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN must not be pawns in the latest acquisition battle.
