Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her message resonated for numerous observers. It is one of the organizations where there exists fact-based and largely dependable reporting – notably during crises like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State During a High-Stakes Battle
Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two huge media empires vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with origins in decades of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with key players as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Additional Layer: Political Influence
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to prefer that bidder 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 installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of Further Instability
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That structure could position CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu argued.
The Core Problem and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the bigger problem remains.
“What we have now is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the most recent merger game.
