Late Thursday, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding a shooting at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her statement seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and mostly reliable reporting – notably during fast-moving events like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation Amid a Business Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two massive media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of business acquisition, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a larger point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
The Additional Layer: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to prefer 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.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Future of More Instability
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a separate entity. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That setup could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the bigger problem remains.
“What we have now is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Measures that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN must not be pawns in the most recent corporate chess match.
