On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words resonated for numerous observers. It is one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and generally trustworthy reporting – notably during breaking news situations like the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a High-Stakes Battle
But the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two giant media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It is often framed as a business story with key players as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Layer: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason 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, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of Continued Instability
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That setup could set up CNN for another sale. The cycle continues.
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 wrote recently 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 Core Issue and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome in this situation, the bigger problem endures.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the most recent corporate chess match.
