Late Thursday, as rumors swirled about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her words rang true to many. It stands as one of the outlets where you can find grounded and largely reliable reporting – especially during fast-moving events like the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State Amid a High-Stakes Tug-of-War
However the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two massive media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with roots 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 speculation 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 influential figures as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
A Further Layer: Donald Trump
This situation is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis 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.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied 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 welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That setup could set up CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, 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 contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Fundamental Problem and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the underlying crisis persists.
“Our current system is a highly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Measures that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are vital for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pieces in the most recent merger game.
