Late Thursday, as rumors swirled about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her message resonated to many. It is one of the outlets where you can find fact-based and mostly dependable reporting – especially during crises like the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position Amid a Corporate Struggle
But the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious position as two massive media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with origins in decades of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“It is often framed as a financial tale with influential figures as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
A Further Element: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is run 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 conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
A Future of More Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That structure could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu stated.
The Core Challenge and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the bigger problem remains.
“What we have now is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Measures that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN must not be pawns in the most recent acquisition battle.
