On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation regarding an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her message rang true for numerous observers. It stands as one of the broadcasters where one can locate grounded and largely trustworthy reporting – especially during crises like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position Amid a High-Stakes Battle
Yet the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two giant media corporations vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has turned into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
A Further Factor: Political Influence
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Recall the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to favor that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled 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 placed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Future of Continued Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That structure could set up CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Issue and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome in this situation, the larger issue persists.
“What we have now is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely 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 never happen.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are essential for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be tools in the most recent merger game.
