On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled concerning a shooting at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a perfect news source, her words seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where you can find reality-based and largely trustworthy reporting – particularly during breaking news situations like the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State During a Business Tug-of-War
But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two giant media empires battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has turned into a major game of business acquisition, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with influential figures as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Element: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to like that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Future of Continued Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development 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.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice 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 challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Bigger Challenge and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens in this situation, the underlying crisis endures.
“What we have now is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Policies that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN must not be tools in the newest acquisition battle.
