Late Thursday, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words resonated to many. It stands as one of the organizations where there exists reality-based and mostly dependable reporting – especially during breaking news situations such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position Amid a Business Battle
But CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two massive media corporations compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has become part of a major game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with key players as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
A Further Layer: The Former President
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the cries 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 asserts that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is run 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 placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of More Instability
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Problem and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the bigger problem endures.
“What we have now is a very anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the newest corporate chess match.
