Late Thursday, while unconfirmed reports spread concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her words resonated for numerous observers. It is one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and generally reliable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position Amid a Corporate Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two huge media conglomerates vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses 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 societal benefit,” Pickard said.
A Further Layer: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to favor that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of 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 editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Possibility of More Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That setup could position CNN for another sale. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Challenge and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the underlying crisis endures.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Policies that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are essential for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pieces in the newest acquisition battle.
