This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her words rang true for numerous observers. It is one of the outlets where there exists reality-based and largely dependable reporting – notably during breaking news situations such as the one unfolding close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain Position During a High-Stakes Tug-of-War
But CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain state as two huge media corporations vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, 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 many years of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“It is often framed as a business story with key players as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.
A Further Factor: Donald Trump
The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to like that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
A Future of Further Instability
Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a separate entity. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That arrangement could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu argued.
The Core Challenge and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the bigger problem persists.
“What we have now is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.
Policies that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a robust democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the newest corporate chess match.
