This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled about the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words rang true for numerous observers. It is one of the organizations where one can locate grounded and mostly trustworthy reporting – notably during crises like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State During a Corporate Tug-of-War
Yet the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious state as two giant media corporations battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has been drawn into a major game of business acquisition, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks 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 common good,” Pickard said.
The Additional Layer: The Former President
This situation is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect 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 unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to favor that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
A Possibility of Continued Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Core Issue and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the bigger problem endures.
“What we have now is a very system hostile to democracy, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN must not be pieces in the latest corporate chess match.
