Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where you can find grounded and largely trustworthy reporting – especially during fast-moving events like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation Amid a Business Struggle
However CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious situation as two massive media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with roots in many years of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with influential figures as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Additional Element: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
A Possibility of Further Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That structure could position CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Core Challenge and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the underlying crisis remains.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pieces in the latest acquisition battle.
