This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her message resonated to many. It remains one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and generally reliable reporting – especially during breaking news situations like the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Situation Amid a Business Battle
But the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two giant media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Layer: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to favor that suitor 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 installed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
A Future of Further Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That setup could pave the way for CNN for another sale. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Core Challenge and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the underlying crisis persists.
“The present media landscape is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the latest acquisition battle.
