Late Thursday, while unconfirmed reports spread about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although it is by no means a perfect news source, her words rang true to many. It is one of the outlets where you can find grounded and mostly trustworthy reporting – particularly during breaking news situations such as the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation During a High-Stakes Struggle
But CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two giant media corporations compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with key players as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Layer: The Former President
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.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is run 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 right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
A Possibility of More Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That setup could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
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 prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Problem and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the underlying crisis remains.
“What we have now is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Policies that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN must not be pieces in the latest merger game.
