Late Thursday, as rumors swirled concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her words rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the broadcasters where there exists fact-based and largely trustworthy reporting – particularly during fast-moving events such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
Yet the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two massive media empires battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with origins in decades of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Layer: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to prefer 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.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Possibility of Further 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 relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That structure could position CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Challenge and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the bigger problem persists.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN must not be pawns in the most recent corporate chess match.
