Don't like CNN? It may be getting even more influence

I'm not a huge CNN fan, although I think some of the over-the-top criticism of the network recently was unfair. I've also written many times in this space defending western media from Chinese critics, mainly because the situation appears black and white to this writer: a monopolistic state-run media machine has very little credibility in critiquing the journalistic values of a free-market, free-press journalism environment in the west.

Despite this, there are problems with corporate ownership and consolidation of media properties in western countries. I am a firm believer that the more voices, opinions, and points of view that can be aired, the better. So I was saddened - although not totally shocked - when I read that the venerable CBS News may contract out its news gathering operations to CNN:

Over the last decade, CNN has held intermittent talks with both ABC News and CBS News about various joint ventures. But during the last several months, talks with CBS have been revived and lately intensified, according to the executives who asked for anonymity because of the confidential nature of the negotiations.

Broadly speaking, the executives described conversations about reducing CBS's news-gathering capacity while keeping its frontline personalities, like Katie Couric, the CBS Evening News anchor, and paying a fee to CNN to buy the cable network's news feeds.

This would be a sad development. While CBS News lags behind the two other major networks, ABC and NBC, in the nightly news ratings, millions of people continue to tune in. It's always better to have more voices than fewer ones, so here's hoping CBS decides to maintain its independent news coverage - and its integrity.