This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled regarding an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a perfect news source, her words rang true for numerous observers. It is one of the outlets where there exists grounded and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a Corporate Tug-of-War
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious position as two massive media conglomerates battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It is often framed as a financial tale with key players as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Factor: The Former President
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary 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 insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to prefer 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, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.
An Outcome of More Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That setup could set up CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Bigger Issue and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the bigger problem persists.
“What we have now is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and new 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 a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pawns in the newest merger game.
