Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation concerning the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her statement resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the broadcasters where you can find reality-based and generally dependable reporting – particularly during crises like the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position During a Corporate Struggle
However the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two huge media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with key players as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
The Additional Layer: The Former President
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will shield him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis 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, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
An Outcome of Further Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That structure could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu stated.
The Bigger Problem and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the bigger problem remains.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pieces in the most recent acquisition battle.
