Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although it is by no means a impeccable news source, her message resonated to many. It stands as one of the broadcasters where you can find grounded and mostly trustworthy reporting – especially during fast-moving events such as the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation Amid a Business Struggle
However CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious state as two huge media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in many years of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a larger point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with influential figures as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Additional Layer: Political Influence
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to favor that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled 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 conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.
A Future of Further Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That setup could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Problem and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the larger issue persists.
“What we have now is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN cannot be tools in the latest corporate chess match.
