Late Thursday, while unconfirmed reports spread about an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a perfect news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where one can locate fact-based and mostly reliable reporting – notably during fast-moving events such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position During a High-Stakes Struggle
But CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two massive media corporations vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has turned into a major game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with influential figures as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
The Additional Factor: The Former President
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to like 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.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
An Outcome of More Turmoil
It is important to note, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That structure could pave the way for CNN for another sale. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Core Problem and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the larger issue persists.
“What we have now is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are essential for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pawns in the newest merger game.
