Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation concerning a shooting at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although it is by no means a perfect news source, her words seemed accurate for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where there exists grounded and mostly trustworthy reporting – particularly during crises like the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State Amid a Corporate Tug-of-War
However the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain state as two massive media conglomerates battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with influential figures as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
The Additional Element: Political Influence
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs 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 come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to like that company more. For one thing, it is controlled 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 placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
A Future of Further Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That structure could set up CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Core Issue and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the bigger problem persists.
“What we have now is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN must not be pieces in the latest acquisition battle.
