Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation regarding an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a impeccable news source, her words rang true for a lot of people. It is one of the outlets where you can find reality-based and largely trustworthy reporting – particularly during fast-moving events like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a Business Struggle
Yet CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious situation as two giant media corporations compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has become part of a major game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“It gets presented as a business story with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
The Additional Element: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, 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.
A Future of More Instability
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That structure could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Challenge and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the larger issue endures.
“The present media landscape is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Measures that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the most recent corporate chess match.
