This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled regarding an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her statement resonated to many. It remains one of the organizations where you can find reality-based and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during crises like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a High-Stakes Tug-of-War
However the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious position as two giant media conglomerates vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with origins in decades of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with key players as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
The Additional Layer: Political Influence
This situation is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is led 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 appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.
An Outcome of Further Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That setup could pave the way for CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Core Problem and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the underlying crisis remains.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Is this likely 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 never happen.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are vital for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pieces in the most recent corporate chess match.
