On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a impeccable news source, her words rang true for a lot of people. It stands as one of the broadcasters where you can find fact-based and mostly dependable reporting – especially during breaking news situations such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position During a Corporate Battle
But CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious situation as two huge media corporations battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, not as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with roots in many years of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Element: Political Influence
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to like 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, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of More Instability
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That setup could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Core Challenge and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the underlying crisis endures.
“What we have now is a highly anti-democratic system, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Policies that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pieces in the latest corporate chess match.
