This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled about an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, noting the confusion and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
Although it is by no means a perfect news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where one can locate fact-based and largely reliable reporting – notably during fast-moving events such as the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position During a Business Struggle
Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two massive media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has become part of a major game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor 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 gets presented as a financial tale with key players as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
A Further Layer: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to like 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, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
An Outcome of Further Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That setup could pave the way for CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu stated.
The Fundamental Problem and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the larger issue persists.
“The present media landscape is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster 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? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be tools in the most recent corporate chess match.
