This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her message seemed accurate to many. It stands as one of the organizations where you can find grounded and mostly reliable reporting – especially during breaking news situations such as the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position During a Business Battle
Yet the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two giant media conglomerates compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with key players as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Factor: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to prefer that bidder more. For one thing, it is led 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 historic news network.
An Outcome of Further Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That arrangement could position CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Problem and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the bigger problem persists.
“Our current system is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle 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 should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are vital for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be tools in the latest corporate chess match.
