Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words seemed accurate for a lot of people. It is one of the broadcasters where there exists reality-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – particularly during crises like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State During a High-Stakes Struggle
However the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two huge media empires vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of business acquisition, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
The Additional Element: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
A Future of Continued Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Challenge and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the underlying crisis endures.
“What we have now is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the newest corporate chess match.
