This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation regarding the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her words rang true for numerous observers. It stands as one of the outlets where you can find fact-based and largely trustworthy reporting – notably during fast-moving events like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation During a Corporate Struggle
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two giant media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with key players as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
The Additional Layer: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
A Future of Continued Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That structure could position CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Issue and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the larger issue persists.
“What we have now is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Policies that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN must not be tools in the newest corporate chess match.
