This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her message rang true for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where one can locate reality-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – particularly during crises such as the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State During a Business Struggle
Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two massive media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues 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 who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
The Additional 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 primary “fake news” adversary.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory 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 insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Future of Further Uncertainty
It is important to note, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That structure could position CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Core Issue and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the underlying crisis remains.
“Our current system is a very system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be tools in the newest corporate chess match.
