This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation regarding a shooting at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the broadcasters where there exists grounded and mostly dependable reporting – particularly during crises such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State During a Business Struggle
But the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain position as two massive media corporations battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with origins in decades of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with key players as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Factor: Donald Trump
This situation is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Recall 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 says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to like that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
A Future of Further Uncertainty
Notably, 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 not exactly a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Problem and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome in this situation, the larger issue endures.
“What we have now is a very system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pieces in the newest corporate chess match.
