On Thursday evening, while unconfirmed reports spread about a shooting at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words seemed accurate for a lot of people. It is one of the broadcasters where there exists grounded and generally reliable reporting – notably during breaking news situations such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two huge media corporations compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has become part of a major game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Additional Element: The Former President
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to support 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 pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
A Possibility of Continued Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That structure could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the bigger problem remains.
“Our current system is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN must not be tools in the latest acquisition battle.
