This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a flawless news source, her words resonated for numerous observers. It remains one of the outlets where you can find grounded and generally reliable reporting – particularly during crises like the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation Amid a Business Battle
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain position as two huge media conglomerates vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has been drawn into a major game of business acquisition, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with key players as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Layer: Political Influence
This situation is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to favor 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, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Future of More Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That structure could position CNN for another sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Core Challenge and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the larger issue remains.
“The present media landscape is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Measures that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN must not be tools in the newest acquisition battle.
