This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding a shooting at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the outlets where there exists fact-based and generally reliable reporting – notably during crises such as the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position Amid a High-Stakes Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two giant media empires vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has become part of a major game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with key players as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Factor: Political Influence
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
A Future of Continued Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix wins, 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 hardly a guarantee of stability. That structure could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Issue and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the underlying crisis endures.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pieces in the latest acquisition battle.
