This Corporate Battle For CNN Shows The Extent to Which Dysfunctional American Media Has Become.
Late Thursday, while unconfirmed reports spread about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her statement seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the broadcasters where you can find fact-based and generally trustworthy reporting – notably during fast-moving events such as the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a Corporate Battle
But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two giant media conglomerates compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has turned into a major game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Element: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
A Future of More Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That setup could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu stated.
The Bigger Challenge and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the larger issue remains.
“What we have now is a very anti-democratic system, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN cannot be tools in the most recent merger game.
