This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her message rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the broadcasters where you can find reality-based and mostly reliable reporting – especially during fast-moving events like the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
But CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious state as two giant media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has turned into a high-risk 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 roots in decades of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“It is often framed as a financial tale with influential figures as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Complicating Layer: Political Influence
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to prefer that company 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, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Future of More Turmoil
It is important to note, if Netflix wins, 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 not exactly a secure position. That setup could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Challenge and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the underlying crisis persists.
“What we have now is a very anti-democratic system, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can address it.
Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pawns in the most recent merger game.
