This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though it is by no means a perfect news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the outlets where one can locate reality-based and generally trustworthy reporting – especially during crises like the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Situation Amid a Business Tug-of-War
However CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious state as two huge media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has turned into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Layer: Political Influence
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to like that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
An Outcome of Continued Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That arrangement could set up CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Challenge and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the underlying crisis persists.
“The present media landscape is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pieces in the latest merger game.
