This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where one can locate reality-based and largely trustworthy reporting – particularly during breaking news situations like the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State Amid a Business Struggle
Yet CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a uncertain position as two massive media empires battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“It is often framed as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Layer: The Former President
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges 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 negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
A Possibility of More Instability
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That setup could set up CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Fundamental Issue and a Path Forward
Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the bigger problem persists.
“Our current system is a very system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are vital for a robust democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN must not be pawns in the newest merger game.
