This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a flawless news source, her words resonated to many. It remains one of the outlets where you can find grounded and largely reliable reporting – especially during breaking news situations like the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State During a Corporate Battle
However CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious state as two huge media empires battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It gets presented as a business story with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
The Additional Factor: Political Influence
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive suspension 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. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
A Possibility of Further Turmoil
It is important to note, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That setup could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Problem and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the bigger problem persists.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Measures that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are essential for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the newest acquisition battle.
