On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled concerning a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her statement resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where there exists reality-based and largely reliable reporting – especially during breaking news situations like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position During a High-Stakes Struggle
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two huge media empires battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The speculation about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with key players as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Factor: The Former President
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to prefer that bidder more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
A Future of Continued Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a separate entity. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Problem and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the larger issue endures.
“Our current system is a highly anti-democratic system, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Measures that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN must not be tools in the most recent merger game.
