On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation concerning an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the outlets where one can locate fact-based and mostly reliable reporting – especially during breaking news situations like the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a Business Struggle
However the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two giant media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with roots in many years of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“It is often framed as a business story with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
A Further Factor: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to favor that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
A Future of More Turmoil
It is important to note, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That structure could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the larger issue remains.
“The present media landscape is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Policies that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN must not be pieces in the most recent acquisition battle.
