On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a impeccable news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It stands as one of the broadcasters where there exists reality-based and largely dependable reporting – especially during breaking news situations such as the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Situation Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two huge media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with origins in many years of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with key players as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
The Additional Layer: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate 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 aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to prefer 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, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.
A Future of Further Uncertainty
Notably, 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 arrangement could set up CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Problem and a Potential Solution
Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the underlying crisis remains.
“What we have now is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN must not be tools in the newest merger game.
