This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation regarding the Brown University gunman, 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 words resonated for numerous observers. It remains one of the organizations where one can locate grounded and largely reliable reporting – notably during fast-moving events like the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State Amid a Business Battle
But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two massive media empires vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
A Further Element: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to like that bidder 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 placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Future of Continued Uncertainty
It is important to note, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That arrangement could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. 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 recently argued that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Problem and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the underlying crisis endures.
“What we have now is a very anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Policies that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pieces in the latest merger game.
