This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled about a shooting at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her message seemed accurate for a lot of people. It is one of the outlets where one can locate fact-based and generally dependable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position During a Corporate Tug-of-War
However CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two huge media conglomerates battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has turned into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses 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 societal benefit,” Pickard added.
The Additional Factor: The Former President
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to prefer 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 installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
An Outcome of Further Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, 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 hardly a safe harbor. That setup could pave the way for CNN for another sale. The cycle continues.
If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Core Issue and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome in this situation, the underlying crisis remains.
“What we have now is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN must not be tools in the latest merger game.
