On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled about the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a impeccable news source, her message resonated for numerous observers. It is one of the outlets where there exists reality-based and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events such as the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious state as two massive media empires vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with influential figures as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Additional Factor: The Former President
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.
A Possibility of Continued Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That arrangement could set up CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Issue and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the underlying crisis persists.
“Our current system is a very system hostile to democracy, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the accumulation 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 such as CNN cannot be pawns in the most recent merger game.
