On Thursday evening, while unconfirmed reports spread about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although it is by no means a impeccable news source, her message resonated to many. It remains one of the outlets where you can find reality-based and largely reliable reporting – notably during crises such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation Amid a High-Stakes Battle
However CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two huge media corporations compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with key players as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
A Further Factor: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Future of More Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That setup could set up CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Issue and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the bigger problem persists.
“Our current system is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pawns in the latest merger game.
