On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her message seemed accurate for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where you can find reality-based and mostly reliable reporting – especially during crises like the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a Corporate Battle
Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious state as two huge media corporations battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a major game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with key players as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
The Additional Layer: The Former President
The network's predicament is further muddied by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to prefer that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
An Outcome of Further Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a separate entity. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That structure could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Problem and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the larger issue persists.
“The present media landscape is a very anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Policies that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN cannot be tools in the latest acquisition battle.
