On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her words seemed accurate to many. It is one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and mostly reliable reporting – notably during crises such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Situation Amid a High-Stakes Battle
Yet the news network, 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 destiny of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with key players as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Factor: Political Influence
This situation is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to favor that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
An Outcome of Continued Instability
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That structure could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently 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 Fundamental Challenge and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome in this situation, the bigger problem remains.
“Our current system is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
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 not only possible – they are vital for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be tools in the latest merger game.
