Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation regarding an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words seemed accurate to many. It stands as one of the outlets where there exists fact-based and largely reliable reporting – especially during breaking news situations such as the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position Amid a Business Struggle
Yet CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two giant media corporations battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a major game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with origins in many years of governmental choices,” noted 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 – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Additional Factor: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to favor 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 right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
A Future of Continued Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That structure could pave the way for CNN for another sale. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Path Forward
Whatever happens in this situation, the larger issue persists.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pieces in the newest acquisition battle.
