This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her words seemed accurate to many. It is one of the outlets where there exists fact-based and mostly dependable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations like the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State During a Business Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two giant media corporations battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the destiny of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Layer: The Former President
This situation is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “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 press briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as 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 aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to favor 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, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
An Outcome of More Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That structure could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome in this situation, the larger issue endures.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the newest acquisition battle.
