On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her statement seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where there exists reality-based and mostly dependable reporting – especially during fast-moving events such as the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
Yet the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two massive media corporations vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of business acquisition, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with key players as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Additional Factor: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Remember 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 the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he seems 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 run by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
An Outcome of Further Uncertainty
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 arrangement could set up CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the underlying crisis endures.
“What we have now is a very system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Initiatives that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN must not be pieces in the newest corporate chess match.
