Late Thursday, as rumors swirled regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her statement resonated for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where there exists fact-based and mostly dependable reporting – particularly during crises like the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
Yet the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two massive media empires battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with key players as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
A Further Factor: Political Influence
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to prefer that suitor more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent 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.
An Outcome of More Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That setup could pave the way for CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Bigger Challenge and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the larger issue remains.
“What we have now is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the latest merger game.
