This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her words seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the outlets where you can find fact-based and generally trustworthy reporting – especially during crises like the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position During a High-Stakes Battle
Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two huge media corporations vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with origins in many years of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“It is often framed as a business story with influential figures as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
A Further Factor: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to prefer that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
A Future of More Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That arrangement could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Issue and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the underlying crisis endures.
“What we have now is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” 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 head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Measures that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pieces in the latest acquisition battle.
