This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message seemed accurate for a lot of people. It is one of the outlets where you can find grounded and largely trustworthy reporting – particularly during crises like the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position Amid a Corporate Battle
Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious state as two massive media empires battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with influential figures as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Additional Layer: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to prefer that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Future of Continued Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That setup could position CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the bigger problem endures.
“What we have now is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are vital for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN must not be pieces in the most recent merger game.
