Late Thursday, while unconfirmed reports spread concerning a shooting at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words seemed accurate to many. It remains one of the broadcasters where one can locate reality-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – notably during crises such as the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position Amid a Business Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two giant media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It is often framed as a business story with influential figures as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
A Further Factor: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
A Future of Continued Instability
It is important to note, 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 set up CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Way Ahead
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 learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Measures that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pieces in the latest corporate chess match.
