This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her words seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the broadcasters where there exists fact-based and mostly dependable reporting – notably during breaking news situations like the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation During a High-Stakes Struggle
However the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two huge media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it 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 hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Layer: Political Influence
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House 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 part of why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of Continued Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That arrangement could position CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be challenged by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Issue and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the larger issue endures.
“Our current system is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pawns in the newest acquisition battle.
