On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled concerning the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her words rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the broadcasters where one can locate reality-based and largely dependable reporting – especially during fast-moving events like the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State During a Business Battle
Yet the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious state as two massive media corporations vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has been drawn into a major game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with influential figures as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
A Further Factor: The Former President
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to favor that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Future of More Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. 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 a future sale. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst 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 opposed by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Problem and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the underlying crisis persists.
“What we have now is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN must not be pawns in the latest corporate chess match.
