This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled concerning a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her statement seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where one can locate grounded and generally trustworthy reporting – notably during fast-moving events such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State Amid a Corporate Battle
However CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two giant media conglomerates 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 helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The speculation about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with influential figures as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
A Further Element: The Former President
This situation is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is run 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 lead editor of that storied news network.
An Outcome of Continued Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That structure could set up CNN for another sale. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, 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 harmful to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu stated.
The Bigger Issue and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens in this situation, the bigger problem persists.
“What we have now is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Initiatives that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are vital for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN must not be tools in the most recent merger game.
