This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation regarding the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a perfect news source, her statement resonated to many. It remains one of the organizations where you can find grounded and mostly trustworthy reporting – especially during fast-moving events like the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
But CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious state as two giant media empires 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, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with origins in many years of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
A Further Element: Political Influence
This situation is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
A Future of More Instability
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That structure could position CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Issue and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the larger issue persists.
“What we have now is a very system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN must not be pieces in the most recent corporate chess match.
