This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled regarding an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the broadcasters where you can find fact-based and generally reliable reporting – particularly during crises like the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position Amid a High-Stakes Battle
But CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two massive media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has turned into 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 profound systemic issues with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The speculation about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a larger point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with influential figures as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Layer: The Former President
This situation is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in press 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 unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to favor that suitor 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, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Future of More Instability
It is important to note, 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 secure position. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Problem and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the larger issue endures.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Initiatives that strengthen independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN cannot be tools in the newest acquisition battle.
