This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread concerning a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although it is by no means a flawless news source, her message rang true to many. It is one of the broadcasters where you can find reality-based and generally reliable reporting – particularly during crises like the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Situation Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
However CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious position as two giant media conglomerates battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, author 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? – overlooks a broader point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with key players as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Layer: The Former President
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will shield him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to favor that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
An Outcome of Further Instability
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That setup could set up CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic 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 challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Problem and a Path Forward
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the underlying crisis remains.
“Our current system is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN cannot be tools in the newest merger game.
