On Thursday evening, while unconfirmed reports spread concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the outlets where there exists reality-based and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during crises such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation Amid a High-Stakes Battle
Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain state as two massive media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has turned into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with influential figures as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
A Further Element: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to favor that suitor more. For one thing, it is led 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 conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of Further Uncertainty
It is important to note, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That setup could position CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
In the view of 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 opposed by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Problem and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens in this situation, the larger issue persists.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Measures that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN must not be pieces in the most recent merger game.
