On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a flawless news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where there exists fact-based and mostly dependable reporting – notably during crises like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two giant media corporations compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has been drawn into a major game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Layer: Donald Trump
This situation is further muddied 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 team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to favor that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
An Outcome of Further Instability
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That structure could position CNN for another sale. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should block both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Challenge and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the larger issue persists.
“What we have now is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pawns in the latest corporate chess match.
