On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where there exists grounded and largely trustworthy reporting – particularly during breaking news situations such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
However the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious state as two huge media empires vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of business acquisition, not as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with origins in many years of policy decisions,” 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 – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with influential figures as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Layer: The Former President
The network's predicament is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, 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 venerable news network.
An Outcome of Further Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That setup could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Issue and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the underlying crisis remains.
“What we have now is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are vital for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN must not be pawns in the latest acquisition battle.