Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation concerning the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a flawless news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It stands as one of the outlets where there exists fact-based and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations such as the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation Amid a High-Stakes Tug-of-War
But CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious state as two massive media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, 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.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” stated 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 – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It gets presented as a business story with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Element: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
A Possibility of Continued Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That arrangement could position CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Core Issue and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the bigger problem persists.
“Our current system is a very anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are vital for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pawns in the latest acquisition battle.
