This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the broadcasters where you can find fact-based and largely reliable reporting – especially during breaking news situations such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position During a High-Stakes Struggle
Yet the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two giant media corporations vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with key players as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
A Further Factor: The Former President
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to favor that company more. For one thing, it is led 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 appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Possibility of Continued Instability
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That setup could set up CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should block both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Problem and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens in this situation, the underlying crisis endures.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN cannot be tools in the newest acquisition battle.
