This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words seemed accurate to many. It stands as one of the outlets where you can find fact-based and generally dependable reporting – especially during crises such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Situation Amid a Business Tug-of-War
But the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two huge media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Element: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to favor that company more. For one thing, it is run 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 installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
A Future of More Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That structure could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Problem and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the underlying crisis endures.
“Our current system is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pieces in the most recent merger game.
