This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her statement seemed accurate to many. It remains one of the organizations where one can locate fact-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – particularly during crises like the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a Corporate Struggle
However CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a uncertain state as two massive media empires battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with influential figures as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Element: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to like 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.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
An Outcome of Continued Uncertainty
It is important to note, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That structure 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 prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Challenge and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the underlying crisis remains.
“Our current system is a very system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pawns in the latest corporate chess match.
