This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where there exists grounded and largely reliable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events such as the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State During a Business Struggle
Yet the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two huge media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with origins in many years of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor 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 powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
The Additional Factor: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to prefer that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-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 top editor of that historic news network.
A Future of Further Instability
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That arrangement could set up CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Problem and a Path Forward
Whatever happens in this situation, the underlying crisis remains.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Initiatives that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are necessary 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 merger game.
