This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled about the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where you can find grounded and generally trustworthy reporting – especially during crises like the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation During a High-Stakes Battle
However the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two massive media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Layer: The Former President
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Future of Further Instability
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That setup could set up CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Core Challenge and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome in this situation, the larger issue remains.
“Our current system is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are vital for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the latest merger game.
