This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled concerning the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words resonated for numerous observers. It is one of the outlets where there exists reality-based and largely trustworthy reporting – especially during crises such as the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position Amid a Business Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two giant media corporations battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Factor: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive 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 protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to prefer that suitor 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, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
An Outcome of More Instability
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Problem and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the bigger problem persists.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Measures that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN must not be tools in the newest acquisition battle.
