On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her statement resonated to many. It stands as one of the organizations where there exists grounded and mostly trustworthy reporting – especially during breaking news situations like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State During a Business Tug-of-War
However CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain state as two huge media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“It is often framed as a business story with key players as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Element: Donald Trump
This situation is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
An Outcome of Continued Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
According to Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Problem and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens in this situation, the bigger problem endures.
“What we have now is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pieces in the latest corporate chess match.
