This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread about an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though it is by no means a impeccable news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where one can locate fact-based and generally reliable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events like the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position Amid a Corporate Battle
But the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious state as two giant media empires vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the destiny of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with influential figures as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.
The Complicating Layer: Donald Trump
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Recall the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to favor that bidder 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 installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.
An Outcome of More Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That structure could position CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the underlying crisis remains.
“What we have now is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge 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 bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are vital for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be tools in the newest acquisition battle.
