On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled about an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the outlets where there exists grounded and mostly trustworthy reporting – notably during breaking news situations such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position Amid a Business Tug-of-War
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain state as two giant media conglomerates compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with roots in many years of policy decisions,” stated 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 – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with influential figures as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Factor: Political Influence
This situation is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his 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 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 favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is run 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 conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of Continued Instability
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out 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 set up CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Core Issue and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens in this situation, the larger issue endures.
“What we have now is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are vital for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the most recent corporate chess match.
