On Thursday evening, while unconfirmed reports spread about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words rang true to many. It stands as one of the outlets where there exists reality-based and mostly reliable reporting – notably during crises such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State During a Business Struggle
However the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two huge media corporations compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with key players as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Element: The Former President
This situation is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “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 tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he appears to support 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 ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
A Future of More Instability
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That structure could position CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should block both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the underlying crisis remains.
“The present media landscape is a very anti-democratic system, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are essential for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be tools in the newest corporate chess match.
