This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message rang true for a lot of people. It is one of the broadcasters where there exists reality-based and largely reliable reporting – especially during fast-moving events such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation During a Corporate Battle
But the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two huge media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has become part of a major game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Factor: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Future of Continued Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.
In the view of 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 prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu argued.
The Core Challenge and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the larger issue endures.
“What we have now is a very system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN must not be pawns in the most recent acquisition battle.