This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread about an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her statement resonated to many. It remains one of the outlets where you can find fact-based and mostly reliable reporting – especially during breaking news situations such as the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Situation During a Business Struggle
However the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two massive media corporations 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 mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with origins in decades of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with influential figures as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
A Further Factor: The Former President
This situation is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds 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.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
A Possibility of Continued Instability
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a separate entity. That would 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 another sale. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu argued.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the underlying crisis remains.
“Our current system is a very system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Measures that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be tools in the newest merger game.
