Late Thursday, while unconfirmed reports spread 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 flawless news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where one can locate grounded and largely reliable reporting – especially during breaking news situations like the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State Amid a Business Battle
Yet the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two massive media conglomerates vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of business acquisition, not as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with influential figures as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
A Further Factor: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to like that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
An Outcome of Further Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That setup could position CNN for another sale. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Challenge and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the underlying crisis remains.
“Our current system is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are vital for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN must not be tools in the latest merger game.
