This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although it is by no means a impeccable news source, her statement resonated for numerous observers. It remains one of the organizations where there exists fact-based and mostly reliable reporting – especially during crises like the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation During a Corporate Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two giant media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has been drawn into a major game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the central actors, 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 main “fake news” adversary.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to prefer that bidder more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the ally of 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 lead editor of that storied news network.
A Future of Further Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That structure could position CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Issue and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the larger issue persists.
“What we have now is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are vital for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the most recent acquisition battle.
