This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where you can find reality-based and mostly reliable reporting – notably during crises like the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation Amid a Business Struggle
Yet the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two massive media corporations vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with key players as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
A Further Factor: The Former President
The network's predicament is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will insulate 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 like that bidder more. For one thing, it is led 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 installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
A Future of More Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That arrangement could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should block both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Issue and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the bigger problem persists.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the most recent merger game.
