This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation regarding a shooting at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her message rang true for a lot of people. It stands as one of the broadcasters where you can find grounded and mostly trustworthy reporting – particularly during fast-moving events such as the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a Corporate Struggle
Yet the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious position as two giant media conglomerates vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a major game of business acquisition, not as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Element: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to favor that company 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 installed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Future of Continued Instability
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That structure could set up CNN for another sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the bigger problem endures.
“What we have now is a very system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator 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.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN must not be pawns in the latest acquisition battle.
