This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation about a shooting at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a flawless news source, her message seemed accurate for a lot of people. It stands as one of the outlets where you can find grounded and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during crises like the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State Amid a Business Struggle
But CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious situation as two massive media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“It gets presented as a business story with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
The Additional Element: Donald Trump
This situation is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is part of 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 bidder more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
An Outcome of Further Instability
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That structure could pave the way for CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu argued.
The Core Issue and a Path Forward
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the bigger problem remains.
“Our current system is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are vital for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN must not be pawns in the latest acquisition battle.
