This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her message resonated to many. It is one of the organizations where you can find reality-based and mostly dependable reporting – notably during breaking news situations such as the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a Business Tug-of-War
But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious position as two massive media corporations vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with origins in decades of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Element: The Former President
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is led 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 conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
An Outcome of More Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. 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 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 wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Problem and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the bigger problem remains.
“Our current system is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial 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? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the newest merger game.
