On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words seemed accurate to many. It stands as one of the broadcasters where you can find fact-based and largely trustworthy reporting – particularly during crises such as the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position Amid a High-Stakes Battle
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious state as two giant media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has turned into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Layer: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to favor that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
A Future of More Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, 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 arrangement could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Core Problem and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the bigger problem endures.
“The present media landscape is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in a handful of 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 shouldn’t be tools in the latest merger game.
