On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where there exists reality-based and mostly reliable reporting – notably during crises like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Situation Amid a Business Tug-of-War
Yet the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious position as two huge media empires vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a major game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with origins in many years of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“It is often framed as a business story with influential figures as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
A Further Factor: The Former President
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Recall the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to like that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
A Future of Further Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That setup could pave the way for CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu stated.
The Core Problem and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the bigger problem endures.
“Our current system is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pawns in the most recent corporate chess match.
