Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation about the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a flawless news source, her message rang true for numerous observers. It stands as one of the outlets where there exists grounded and largely trustworthy reporting – notably during crises like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation During a Business Struggle
Yet 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 corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a larger point.
“It gets presented as a business story with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
A Further Element: Political Influence
This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
A Future of Continued Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That setup could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should block both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Problem and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the larger issue persists.
“What we have now is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Policies that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN must not be pawns in the most recent merger game.
