On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, noting the confusion and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words rang true for numerous observers. It stands as one of the organizations where one can locate grounded and generally trustworthy reporting – notably during fast-moving events such as the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a Corporate Battle
But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two huge media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a larger point.
“It is often framed as a business story with key players as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
A Further Element: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation 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 protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of Continued Instability
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a separate entity. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That structure could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Challenge and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the bigger problem endures.
“Our current system is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Policies that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN must not be tools in the newest merger game.
