On Thursday evening, while unconfirmed reports spread concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message rang true for numerous observers. It is one of the broadcasters where you can find grounded and largely dependable reporting – especially during fast-moving events such as the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State Amid a Corporate Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two huge media corporations vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with key players as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Layer: Political Influence
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to prefer 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.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
An Outcome of Further Instability
It is important to note, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That setup could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should block both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Issue and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the underlying crisis remains.
“The present media landscape is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Policies that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are vital for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pieces in the newest acquisition battle.
