On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation regarding an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where there exists reality-based and mostly reliable reporting – especially during fast-moving events such as the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable State Amid a High-Stakes Struggle
However the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two massive media conglomerates compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with influential figures as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
The Additional Element: The Former President
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's 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 the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
There is a basis to favor that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
An Outcome of Further Uncertainty
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That structure could position CNN for another sale. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Problem and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome in this situation, the underlying crisis persists.
“Our current system is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.
Initiatives that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are vital for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pawns in the most recent merger game.
