This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her words rang true to many. It is one of the broadcasters where you can find fact-based and largely reliable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations like the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation Amid a Corporate Battle
However the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two huge media corporations compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with influential figures as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Factor: 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.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is led 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 installed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
A Future of More Uncertainty
It is important to note, 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. The cycle continues.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Challenge and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the larger issue endures.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Measures that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN must not be tools in the latest corporate chess match.
