On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her words seemed accurate for numerous observers. It remains one of the outlets where you can find fact-based and largely reliable reporting – especially during crises such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State During a Business Tug-of-War
But the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain state as two huge media corporations battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, 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.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Layer: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
A Possibility of Continued Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That setup could position CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Problem and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the larger issue persists.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the newest corporate chess match.
