This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words rang true to many. It remains one of the outlets where there exists reality-based and mostly reliable reporting – notably during breaking news situations like the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a Corporate Battle
However the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two huge media corporations compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has turned into a major game of business acquisition, not as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with origins in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with influential figures as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
A Further Layer: The Former President
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to favor that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of More Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a separate entity. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That structure could set up CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome in this situation, the larger issue remains.
“The present media landscape is a very anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Measures that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pawns in the newest corporate chess match.
