This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Even though it is by no means a impeccable news source, her statement resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where there exists grounded and mostly reliable reporting – notably during breaking news situations such as the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation During a High-Stakes Tug-of-War
But CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two giant media empires vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” said 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? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
A Further Layer: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to prefer 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.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
A Future of More Instability
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That setup could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Issue and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens in this situation, the larger issue endures.
“Our current system is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN must not be tools in the latest merger game.
