This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message rang true for a lot of people. It is one of the outlets where you can find reality-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – particularly during crises such as the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation During a Corporate Tug-of-War
However CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two giant media conglomerates battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the destiny of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“It is often framed as a business story with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
A Further Factor: Political Influence
This situation is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Recall the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory 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 protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to favor that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Future of Continued Uncertainty
Significantly, 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 not exactly a safe harbor. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Core Problem and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the bigger problem endures.
“Our current system is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Measures that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw 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, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the latest acquisition battle.
