On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.
While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her message rang true for numerous observers. It is one of the outlets where you can find grounded and generally dependable reporting – particularly during crises like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State Amid a Corporate Battle
However the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two massive media corporations compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with key players as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.
A Further Layer: Political Influence
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his 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 the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to prefer that suitor 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 installed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
An Outcome of More Instability
Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That setup could position CNN for a future sale. It never ends.
According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should block both deals.
“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu stated.
The Bigger Problem and a Way Ahead
Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the bigger problem remains.
“The present media landscape is a very system hostile to democracy, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.
Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN must not be pieces in the latest corporate chess match.
