On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where you can find reality-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – notably during fast-moving events such as the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a Business Tug-of-War
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two giant media empires battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
A Further Factor: The Former President
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to favor that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled 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 right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
An Outcome of Further Instability
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That structure could set up CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
According to 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.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Problem and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the underlying crisis endures.
“The present media landscape is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Measures that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN cannot be tools in the most recent corporate chess match.
