CNN Wrapped a News Segment about Barbie’s Economic Impact in a Commercial for the Film’s Streaming Debut

CNN reported on Friday that Barbie was streaming on Max — in an alleged news segment that was pretty obviously a commercial for another Warner Bros. Discovery property.

While Barbie was a runaway success at the box office in 2023 and a feminist pop culture phenomenon, that’s not what the segment on CNN This Morning was about.

Anchors Poppy Harlow and Erica Hill (in for Phil Mattingly) plus correspondent Rahel Solomon (appropriately dressed in pink) wrapped their reporting around promoting the streaming debut of Barbie, a WBD-produced movie on Max, a WBD-owned streaming service.

The core of the segment did report on the economic impact of the film, like how the digital and streaming release of Barbie came just in time for the holidays, with even more Barbie merchandise taking over the stores for “Pinkmas” after “Barbiecore” took over stores during the summer. And when the movie had a box office explosion that was driven by women and girls, all while Taylor Swift boosted the American economy with her own female-dominant audience, that was a moment that merited reporting because it was so noteworthy and, in some senses, unprecedented. But the announcement that a movie is streaming is not news — it’s entertainment marketing.

Back when Barbie was released, CNN’s on-screen personalities wore pink, and stated the perfunctory fact that CNN’s parent company was Warner Bros. Discovery in the name of transparency. But transparency wasn’t the problem. CNN’s on-air personalities have been scrupulous about disclosing any connections to members of their corporate family; Harlow and Hill made the same statement during their “report” on Friday. All the “transparency” accomplished in this case was let the viewer know they were watching a commercial pretending to be a news segment.

Watch the video above via CNN.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.