Late Thursday, as rumors swirled regarding an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although it is by no means a perfect news source, her message rang true for a lot of people. It is one of the outlets where you can find reality-based and generally trustworthy reporting – especially during breaking news situations such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State Amid a High-Stakes Tug-of-War
Yet the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two massive media corporations battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has become part of a major game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It gets presented as a business story with key players as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Factor: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield 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.
He has grounds to like that company more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, 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 historic news network.
A Future of Further Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That structure could position 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 anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu argued.
The Core Problem and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the larger issue endures.
“What we have now is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be tools in the newest merger game.
