This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her statement seemed accurate for a lot of people. It stands as one of the broadcasters where one can locate fact-based and generally trustworthy reporting – especially during crises such as the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position During a Business Tug-of-War
But the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain state as two massive media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
A Further Element: Political Influence
This situation is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Remember the shouts 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 press briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Future of Further Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That setup could position CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Issue and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the underlying crisis endures.
“Our current system is a very anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Policies that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN must not be tools in the newest acquisition battle.
