On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her message rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where you can find grounded and mostly dependable reporting – especially during fast-moving events such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position During a Business Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two massive media corporations compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has been drawn into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“It is often framed as a business story with influential figures as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Factor: The Former President
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to favor that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
A Possibility of More Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That structure could position CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Challenge and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the bigger problem persists.
“Our current system is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized 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 highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN must not be pawns in the latest merger game.
