Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a impeccable news source, her words rang true to many. It remains one of the organizations where one can locate fact-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – particularly during crises like the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.
An Uncertain State During a High-Stakes Struggle
However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two massive media empires vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.
No matter the result, the future of CNN has been drawn into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with key players as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.
The Additional Layer: The Former President
The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.
Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.
Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
He has grounds to favor that company more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.
A Future of Further Turmoil
Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That structure could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Problem and a Way Ahead
Whatever happens with this particular battle, the bigger problem endures.
“The present media landscape is a very anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.
Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that strengthen independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.
When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN must not be tools in the latest merger game.
