On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message resonated for numerous observers. It is one of the outlets where there exists grounded and mostly trustworthy reporting – notably during breaking news situations like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State Amid a Corporate Tug-of-War
Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious position as two giant media corporations battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a larger point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with key players as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Factor: The Former President
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
He has grounds to prefer that company 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 appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.
A Possibility of More Uncertainty
It is important to note, if Netflix is successful, 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 not exactly a safe harbor. That setup could position CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Issue and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the larger issue persists.
“Our current system is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a healthy democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN cannot be tools in the latest corporate chess match.
