Late Thursday, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where you can find grounded and generally reliable reporting – notably during breaking news situations such as the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State Amid a Business Struggle
But the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain position as two giant media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with origins in decades of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Layer: The Former President
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
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 White House briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will shield him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to prefer that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
A Possibility of Further Instability
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 hardly a guarantee of stability. That structure could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Challenge and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the larger issue persists.
“Our current system is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pieces in the newest acquisition battle.
