On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about a shooting at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her words rang true to many. It stands as one of the outlets where one can locate grounded and mostly trustworthy reporting – notably during fast-moving events such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
Yet CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious situation as two huge media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It is often framed as a financial tale with key players as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Layer: Donald Trump
This situation is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to favor that suitor more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
A Possibility of Continued Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That arrangement could position CNN for another sale. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Challenge and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the underlying crisis remains.
“What we have now is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN must not be tools in the latest corporate chess match.
