Late Thursday, as rumors swirled concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a flawless news source, her statement resonated for a lot of people. It stands as one of the outlets where there exists fact-based and largely reliable reporting – notably during fast-moving events like the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a Business Battle
But the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two huge media corporations battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” stated 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 more important point.
“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with key players as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Layer: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Think back to 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 White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Possibility of More Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That setup could position CNN for another sale. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Challenge and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the underlying crisis persists.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pieces in the latest merger game.
