This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation regarding an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her message seemed accurate to many. It stands as one of the outlets where one can locate fact-based and mostly reliable reporting – notably during breaking news situations like the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a Business Tug-of-War
But CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two giant media corporations battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than 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,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The speculation about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Layer: Political Influence
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to favor that company more. For one thing, it is controlled 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 appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Possibility of More Instability
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That setup could position CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Problem and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the bigger problem endures.
“What we have now is a highly anti-democratic system, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that strengthen independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are vital for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be tools in the most recent acquisition battle.
