Late Thursday, as rumors swirled regarding an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her statement seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where you can find grounded and generally reliable reporting – especially during fast-moving events like the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation During a High-Stakes Tug-of-War
But CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain position as two huge media conglomerates vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with key players as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Factor: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to prefer 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, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
A Future of Further Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could position CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Issue and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the bigger problem persists.
“The present media landscape is a very system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pieces in the latest merger game.
