On Thursday evening, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where you can find grounded and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during crises such as the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State Amid a Corporate Struggle
But the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a uncertain position as two huge media corporations vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
A Further Element: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the shouts 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 CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
There is a basis to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
An Outcome of Further Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That setup could position CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
If you ask 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 disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by regulators,” Wu stated.
The Core Issue and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the underlying crisis persists.
“The present media landscape is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pawns in the latest corporate chess match.
