On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation concerning the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message seemed accurate for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where you can find reality-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – particularly during crises like the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State During a High-Stakes Struggle
Yet the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a uncertain state as two giant media conglomerates compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with roots in many years of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with key players as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Additional Factor: Political Influence
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is led 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, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of Further Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could set up CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Challenge and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome in this situation, the larger issue endures.
“What we have now is a very anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pieces in the newest acquisition battle.
