Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the outlets where one can locate grounded and largely trustworthy reporting – notably during fast-moving events such as the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation During a Corporate Struggle
However the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious position as two massive media corporations battle over 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 helps the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“It is often framed as a financial tale with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Layer: Political Influence
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Future of More Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That setup could set up CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Problem and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the bigger problem remains.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are vital for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the latest corporate chess match.
