On Thursday evening, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message seemed accurate to many. It is one of the organizations where there exists reality-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – especially during crises like the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State During a Corporate Tug-of-War
However the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious situation as two huge media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with key players as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
The Additional Layer: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
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 tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to favor that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, 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 Further Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That structure could position CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice 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 regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Issue and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the bigger problem persists.
“What we have now is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. 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 won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be tools in the latest acquisition battle.
