Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation regarding the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the broadcasters where you can find grounded and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events like the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State Amid a Business Battle
But CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious state as two huge media conglomerates battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could 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 added.
The Complicating Layer: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to like 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.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.
A Possibility of Continued Instability
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That structure could pave the way for CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Problem and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens in this situation, the bigger problem remains.
“Our current system is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
Regarding media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN must not be pawns in the most recent acquisition battle.
