Late Thursday, while unconfirmed reports spread concerning the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her statement resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the outlets where one can locate grounded and mostly reliable reporting – notably during fast-moving events like the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation Amid a Business Struggle
But the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious state as two giant media corporations compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with origins in decades of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with influential figures as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Additional Layer: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to like 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 installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Possibility of Continued Instability
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That structure could position CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Challenge and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the bigger problem remains.
“What we have now is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pieces in the newest merger game.
