Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although it is by no means a perfect news source, her message seemed accurate for numerous observers. It remains one of the organizations where one can locate fact-based and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position Amid a Business Struggle
However CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two giant media corporations compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the destiny of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a larger point.
“It gets presented as a business story with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
The Additional Layer: The Former President
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Possibility of Further Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That arrangement could set up CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
According to Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Issue and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the underlying crisis persists.
“Our current system is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Measures that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pawns in the latest acquisition battle.
