Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation concerning a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her statement resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where you can find grounded and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State During a Business Battle
Yet the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two huge media corporations compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has been drawn into a major game of business acquisition, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with roots in many years of regulatory actions,” noted 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? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It is often framed as a financial tale with key players as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Element: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to like that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of Continued Turmoil
It is important to note, if Netflix is successful, 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 arrangement could position CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Problem and a Path Forward
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the underlying crisis endures.
“What we have now is a very anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are vital for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the latest corporate chess match.
