This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled concerning the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though the network is hardly a flawless news source, her statement seemed accurate for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – notably during crises such as the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Situation Amid a Corporate Struggle
But the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two massive media corporations compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has turned into a major game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.
The Additional Factor: The Former President
This situation is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.
Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly 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 editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Future of Further Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That setup could set up CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Issue and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens regarding CNN, the bigger problem endures.
“What we have now is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pawns in the newest merger game.
