On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words resonated to many. It stands as one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and generally trustworthy reporting – especially during crises like the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Situation Amid a Business Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two giant media conglomerates compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with influential figures as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Element: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
A Future of More Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That setup could set up CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Issue and a Path Forward
Whatever happens in this situation, the bigger problem persists.
“What we have now is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be tools in the newest corporate chess match.
