This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread concerning a shooting at Brown University, 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 impeccable news source, her message seemed accurate for numerous observers. It remains one of the outlets where there exists grounded and largely trustworthy reporting – particularly during crises such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State During a Corporate Struggle
However CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious situation as two huge media empires battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
The Additional Layer: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-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 More Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That setup could pave the way for CNN for another sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Issue and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the underlying crisis endures.
“The present media landscape is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN must not be pawns in the most recent merger game.
