On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled about the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where one can locate grounded and largely reliable reporting – notably during fast-moving events such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a High-Stakes Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two huge media conglomerates compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with key players as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
A Further Factor: Political Influence
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
An Outcome of Further Turmoil
It is important to note, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That setup could set up CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Issue and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the underlying crisis persists.
“Our current system is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the latest merger game.
