On Thursday evening, while unconfirmed reports spread about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her words seemed accurate for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where one can locate grounded and largely trustworthy reporting – particularly during fast-moving events such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position Amid a Corporate Tug-of-War
However CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious state as two huge media empires battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has turned into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
The Additional Element: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Remember the chants 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 the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to like that company more. For one thing, it is run 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 installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
A Future of Continued Instability
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That structure could pave the way for CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
According to Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Challenge and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the larger issue persists.
“What we have now is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the most recent corporate chess match.
