On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled regarding 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 it is by no means a flawless news source, her statement resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where you can find grounded and mostly reliable reporting – notably during fast-moving events like the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State During a Corporate Battle
Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two huge media corporations vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has become part of a major game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” said 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 – 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 main characters, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Layer: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts 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 appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled 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 installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Possibility of Continued Turmoil
Notably, 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 hardly a safe harbor. That setup could set up CNN for another sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Problem and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the underlying crisis endures.
“Our current system is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be tools in the most recent corporate chess match.
