On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her message seemed accurate for numerous observers. It stands as one of the outlets where one can locate fact-based and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during crises such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position During a Corporate Battle
However CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two huge media corporations battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
The Additional Element: Political Influence
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump'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 claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to favor that company more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Future of Further Uncertainty
It is important to note, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That structure could position CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Issue and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the bigger problem persists.
“Our current system is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are vital for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN must not be pawns in the most recent merger game.
