On Thursday evening, while unconfirmed reports spread concerning a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a flawless news source, her statement seemed accurate to many. It remains one of the organizations where there exists fact-based and generally dependable reporting – especially during fast-moving events such as the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State During a Business Tug-of-War
However the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two giant media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Element: The Former President
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect 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 aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to like that company more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
A Possibility of Continued Instability
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That setup could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should block both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Problem and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the bigger problem endures.
“Our current system is a very anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pieces in the latest acquisition battle.
