On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about a shooting at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her words resonated to many. It stands as one of the organizations where there exists grounded and largely reliable reporting – especially during breaking news situations such as the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State Amid a Business Tug-of-War
But the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two huge media empires battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with key players as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Element: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
There is a basis to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
An Outcome of Further Instability
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That arrangement could set up CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Issue and a Path Forward
No matter the outcome in this situation, the larger issue endures.
“The present media landscape is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN must not be pieces in the newest merger game.
