On Thursday evening, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a flawless news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where one can locate grounded and mostly reliable reporting – notably during crises like the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position During a Business Battle
Yet the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two huge media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with roots in many years of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“It is often framed as a business story with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Layer: Political Influence
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent 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.
An Outcome of Continued Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a separate entity. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for another 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 contested by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Problem and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the underlying crisis endures.
“What we have now is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair 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 support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN must not be tools in the most recent corporate chess match.
