On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled regarding an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her words resonated to many. It remains one of the organizations where there exists reality-based and largely reliable reporting – especially during crises such as the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two giant media empires vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of business acquisition, rather than 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 governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It is often framed as a business story with key players as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
The Additional Layer: The Former President
The network's predicament is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. 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 favor that suitor more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
A Future of Continued Turmoil
It is important to note, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That structure could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Issue and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the bigger problem remains.
“Our current system is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge 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 prohibit the accumulation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pieces in the latest merger game.
