Late Thursday, as rumors swirled regarding an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the outlets where one can locate fact-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – particularly during fast-moving events like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position During a Corporate Tug-of-War
Yet the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain position as two massive media conglomerates battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, not as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“It gets presented as a business story with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
A Further Element: Political Influence
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
An Outcome of Continued Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Core Problem and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the bigger problem endures.
“The present media landscape is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Measures that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pawns in the latest corporate chess match.
