This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation regarding an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a flawless news source, her words rang true for numerous observers. It is one of the outlets where one can locate grounded and mostly dependable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Situation During a Business Struggle
However the news network, 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 destiny of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with origins in many years of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
A Further Layer: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to favor that suitor 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, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
A Future of Further Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That structure could set up CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.
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 disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Problem and a Path Forward
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the bigger problem endures.
“What we have now is a highly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Measures that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are essential for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pawns in the latest merger game.
