On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation concerning a shooting at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where you can find grounded and generally dependable reporting – especially during fast-moving events such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position Amid a Business Battle
Yet CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious situation as two huge media conglomerates compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It is often framed as a business story with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Element: 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” adversary.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension 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. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to favor that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
A Future of Further Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu stated.
The Core Issue and a Path Forward
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the underlying crisis persists.
“Our current system is a highly anti-democratic system, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Policies that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in too few hands are within reach – 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 most recent merger game.
