Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation concerning the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her statement resonated to many. It remains one of the broadcasters where you can find fact-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – notably during crises like the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State Amid a Business Tug-of-War
However the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two giant media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a major game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Layer: The Former President
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his 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. 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 aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to favor that suitor more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Possibility of More Instability
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That setup could position CNN for a future 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 detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Issue and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the bigger problem endures.
“The present media landscape is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the latest corporate chess match.
