On Thursday evening, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a perfect news source, her statement resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and generally trustworthy reporting – especially during fast-moving events like the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position Amid a Corporate Struggle
But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain state as two massive media corporations compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has become part of a major game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
A Further Factor: The Former President
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason 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, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
An Outcome of Continued Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Issue and a Path Forward
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the larger issue remains.
“Our current system is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Measures that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pieces in the latest corporate chess match.
