This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Even though it is by no means a perfect news source, her message resonated to many. It is one of the broadcasters where there exists reality-based and mostly dependable reporting – particularly during crises like the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position Amid a High-Stakes Battle
But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two giant media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has become part of a major game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Element: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to favor that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
An Outcome of Further Instability
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That setup could set up CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Challenge and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the underlying crisis persists.
“What we have now is a very anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Policies that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN must not be pawns in the latest merger game.
