Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her message rang true for a lot of people. It stands as one of the outlets where you can find fact-based and largely trustworthy reporting – particularly during breaking news situations like the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position Amid a Business Tug-of-War
However CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain position as two giant media conglomerates vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with influential figures as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Layer: Political Influence
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the cries 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. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to favor that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Future of More Uncertainty
It is important to note, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That structure could pave the way for CNN for another sale. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal 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.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Challenge and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the bigger problem persists.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Initiatives that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pieces in the newest merger game.
