This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread about an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where one can locate grounded and largely reliable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position Amid a High-Stakes Battle
Yet CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious situation as two giant media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with roots in many years of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a larger point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Element: The Former President
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.
An Outcome of More Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That structure could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Problem and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the larger issue persists.
“Our current system is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the newest merger game.
