On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation regarding a shooting at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message seemed accurate for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where there exists reality-based and largely trustworthy reporting – notably during breaking news situations such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State Amid a High-Stakes Battle
But the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two massive media empires vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the destiny of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
A Further Factor: The Former President
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” adversary.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to like 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.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
A Future of Further Instability
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That setup could position CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Issue and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the bigger problem endures.
“What we have now is a highly anti-democratic system, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Measures that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in too few 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 shouldn’t be pieces in the latest corporate chess match.
