This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words seemed accurate to many. It stands as one of the broadcasters where you can find reality-based and largely dependable reporting – particularly during crises like the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State Amid a Business Tug-of-War
However CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two massive media corporations vie 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, instead of as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The speculation about which company will control 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 influential figures as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
A Further Layer: 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” antagonist.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
Trump has reason to favor that suitor more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
A Future of Further Instability
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That setup could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Problem and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the underlying crisis persists.
“Our current system is a very anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Policies that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN must not be pawns in the newest acquisition battle.
