This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled regarding an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her message rang true to many. It stands as one of the organizations where one can locate grounded and mostly dependable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation Amid a Corporate Tug-of-War
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious position as two giant media conglomerates battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with origins in decades of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“It is often framed as a financial tale with key players as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Factor: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
A Future of Further Instability
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That arrangement could position CNN for another sale. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Problem and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the larger issue persists.
“The present media landscape is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the newest acquisition battle.
