This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her statement rang true to many. It is one of the outlets where there exists fact-based and largely reliable reporting – notably during crises like the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two massive media conglomerates compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with key players as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Element: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to favor that bidder 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 installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Future of More Instability
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That setup could pave the way for CNN for another 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 wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Bigger Challenge and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the larger issue persists.
“Our current system is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pieces in the latest merger game.
