This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her message rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where you can find grounded and generally reliable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events like the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State During a Corporate Battle
But the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two huge media conglomerates battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of business acquisition, not as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with key players as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
A Further Element: Donald Trump
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to like 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.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.
An Outcome of Continued Turmoil
It is important to note, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly 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 great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Challenge and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome in this situation, the bigger problem remains.
“What we have now is a very anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are vital for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pawns in the most recent acquisition battle.
