This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her words rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the broadcasters where there exists grounded and largely dependable reporting – especially during fast-moving events like the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position During a Corporate Struggle
But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious state as two giant media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with origins in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Additional Factor: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted 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.
Trump has reason to prefer that bidder 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.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
An Outcome of More Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That structure could set up 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 prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu stated.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the larger issue endures.
“The present media landscape is a very anti-democratic system, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pieces in the latest merger game.
