On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It stands as one of the outlets where there exists grounded and largely reliable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a Business Battle
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious state as two huge media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has become part of a major game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with influential figures as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Additional Element: The Former President
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says 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 favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
A Future of More Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. That would 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.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu stated.
The Fundamental Issue and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the bigger problem remains.
“Our current system is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Policies that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be tools in the latest corporate chess match.
