This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread about the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her message seemed accurate to many. It stands as one of the outlets where there exists grounded and largely reliable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations like the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State During a Business Battle
However the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two massive media corporations battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
A Further Factor: 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 main “fake news” adversary.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.
A Future of Continued Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That structure could position CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Issue and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the larger issue remains.
“What we have now is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge 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, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
Regarding media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be tools in the latest merger game.
