On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled about the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her words rang true for numerous observers. It is one of the broadcasters where one can locate fact-based and largely trustworthy reporting – especially during breaking news situations such as the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State Amid a High-Stakes Battle
But 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 parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“It is often framed as a business story with key players as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Additional Factor: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to favor that suitor 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, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Future of More Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That setup could position CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Problem and a Path Forward
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the larger issue remains.
“What we have now is a very system hostile to democracy, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pieces in the most recent acquisition battle.