This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words resonated to many. It stands as one of the organizations where one can locate grounded and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation During a High-Stakes Struggle
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two massive media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has become part of a major game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with influential figures as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Element: The Former President
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is run 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, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
An Outcome of Continued Instability
It is important to note, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. 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 yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be challenged by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Challenge and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the larger issue persists.
“Our current system is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are vital for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN cannot be tools in the most recent merger game.
