This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins posted on 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 seemed accurate to many. It is one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and largely dependable reporting – especially during fast-moving events such as the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a Corporate Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two giant media empires vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has become part of a major game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with key players as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Layer: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled 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, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Future of Further Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could position CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the larger issue persists.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are essential for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the most recent acquisition battle.
