This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread about the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It is one of the outlets where there exists reality-based and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events like the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a Corporate Battle
Yet the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain state as two huge media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“It gets presented as a business story with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Layer: The Former President
The network's predicament is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Recall the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to prefer that bidder more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
A Possibility of More Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That structure could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Issue and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome in this situation, the bigger problem remains.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Measures that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are vital for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN must not be pawns in the most recent merger game.