Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation concerning an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the outlets where there exists reality-based and mostly dependable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position During a Business Struggle
Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious position as two huge media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“The narrative is crafted as a business story with influential figures as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
A Further Element: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation 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 negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to favor that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
A Future of More Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu stated.
The Bigger Issue and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the underlying crisis remains.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will never happen.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are vital for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pawns in the newest merger game.
