Late Thursday, as rumors swirled regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a impeccable news source, her message seemed accurate for a lot of people. It stands as one of the outlets where there exists grounded and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during crises like the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State During a Business Struggle
However the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious state as two huge media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has become part of a major game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“It gets presented as a business story with key players as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
A Further Element: The Former President
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to like that company more. For one thing, it is led 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 appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
An Outcome of Continued Turmoil
It is important to note, if Netflix wins, 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 not exactly a secure position. That arrangement could position CNN for another sale. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued 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 recently wrote.
The Core Problem and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the bigger problem endures.
“What we have now is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Measures that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pieces in the most recent merger game.
