This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her message seemed accurate for a lot of people. It is one of the broadcasters where one can locate fact-based and generally trustworthy reporting – especially during crises like the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State Amid a Corporate Tug-of-War
But the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two massive media empires vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has become part of a major game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“It is often framed as a business story with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Factor: The Former President
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to prefer that suitor 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 installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
An Outcome of More Instability
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That setup could pave the way for CNN for another sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Issue and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the larger issue remains.
“The present media landscape is a very anti-democratic system, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Measures that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN must not be pawns in the most recent acquisition battle.
