This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though it is by no means a flawless news source, her words resonated to many. It is one of the broadcasters where one can locate reality-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – notably during crises like the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation Amid a Business Tug-of-War
But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain position as two huge media empires vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the destiny of CNN has become part of a major game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
A Further Layer: Political Influence
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Future of Further Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Issue and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the underlying crisis endures.
“The present media landscape is a very system hostile to 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 overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are vital for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pawns in the most recent acquisition battle.
