This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled regarding the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Even though CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her statement rang true to many. It remains one of the outlets where you can find grounded and mostly trustworthy reporting – notably during crises such as the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position During a Business Battle
Yet the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious state as two massive media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.
The speculation about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.
“It gets presented as a corporate drama with influential figures as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.
A Further Layer: Political Influence
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to prefer that suitor 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, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.
An Outcome of Continued Uncertainty
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 secure position. That structure could pave the way for CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.
According to Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Bigger Challenge and a Potential Solution
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the larger issue remains.
“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can address it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Policies that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pieces in the most recent merger game.
