On Thursday evening, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her words seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where you can find grounded and largely trustworthy reporting – especially during fast-moving events like the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation Amid a Corporate Tug-of-War
However CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two massive media empires vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with key players as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Layer: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
A Future of More Turmoil
It is important to note, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That setup could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Challenge and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the underlying crisis endures.
“The present media landscape is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized 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 be impossible forever.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are vital for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be tools in the latest corporate chess match.
