Late Thursday, as rumors swirled concerning a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her statement seemed accurate for numerous observers. It stands as one of the organizations where there exists fact-based and largely trustworthy reporting – particularly during fast-moving events like the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a High-Stakes Struggle
Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two giant media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has turned into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with influential figures as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Factor: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to favor that company 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, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
A Future of Further Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That structure could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu stated.
The Core Issue and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the bigger problem endures.
“The present media landscape is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pawns in the most recent corporate chess match.
