This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation regarding 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.
Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where one can locate fact-based and mostly dependable reporting – particularly during crises like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position Amid a Corporate Battle
Yet the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a uncertain state as two massive media corporations vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy 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.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Element: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is controlled 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 appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
A Future of Continued Instability
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That structure could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu stated.
The Bigger Problem and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the bigger problem endures.
“Our current system is a very anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are essential for a robust democracy.
Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN cannot be tools in the newest corporate chess match.
