Late Thursday, as rumors swirled regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her statement resonated to many. It stands as one of the broadcasters where one can locate reality-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – particularly during breaking news situations such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State During a High-Stakes Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two giant media conglomerates battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of business acquisition, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It is often framed as a business story with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Layer: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
A Future of More Instability
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That arrangement could position CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Issue and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the underlying crisis remains.
“What we have now is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pieces in the newest acquisition battle.