Late Thursday, as rumors swirled about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her statement seemed accurate for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and largely dependable reporting – notably during crises such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Situation During a Business Tug-of-War
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain position as two massive media corporations battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with origins in many years of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with key players as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
A Further Factor: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to favor that suitor more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
An Outcome of Continued Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That setup could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Problem and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the bigger problem endures.
“What we have now is a very system hostile to democracy, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are essential for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be tools in the newest corporate chess match.
