On Thursday evening, while unconfirmed reports spread about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a flawless news source, her statement resonated to many. It remains one of the outlets where you can find grounded and largely 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 High-Stakes Battle
But the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious position as two giant media conglomerates vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
A Further Layer: Donald Trump
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.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason 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 installed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.
A Future of More Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That setup could position CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should block both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Core Challenge and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the underlying crisis remains.
“What we have now is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Policies that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be tools in the newest merger game.
