This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words seemed accurate for numerous observers. It remains one of the outlets where one can locate grounded and largely reliable reporting – particularly during crises such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position Amid a High-Stakes Tug-of-War
But the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious position as two giant media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The speculation about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with influential figures as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Additional Layer: Political Influence
This situation is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the cries 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 CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is run 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, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
An Outcome of Continued Turmoil
It is important to note, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That structure could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by regulators,” Wu stated.
The Bigger Problem and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the bigger problem remains.
“Our current system is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pawns in the most recent merger game.
