This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message resonated to many. It is one of the organizations where there exists fact-based and generally trustworthy reporting – particularly during crises such as the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position Amid a Business Battle
However the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious position as two huge media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important 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 explained.
The Complicating Element: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “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 tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to prefer that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
A Possibility of More Instability
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That setup could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Bigger Challenge and a Path Forward
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the larger issue persists.
“The present media landscape is a very anti-democratic system, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
Regarding media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN must not be pawns in the latest corporate chess match.
