This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her words rang true to many. It stands as one of the outlets where you can find grounded and largely dependable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State During a High-Stakes Struggle
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain state as two huge media conglomerates compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has become part of a major game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with influential figures as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
A Further Layer: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to prefer that suitor more. For one thing, it is led 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 placed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.
A Future of More Turmoil
It is important to note, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That structure could pave the way for CNN for another sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Challenge and a Path Forward
Whatever happens in this situation, the underlying crisis endures.
“The present media landscape is a very anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the latest corporate chess match.
