🔗 Share this article

This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.

While the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her message seemed accurate for numerous observers. It is one of the outlets where there exists fact-based and generally dependable reporting – notably during fast-moving events such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Precarious Position During a Business Struggle

But the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious position as two huge media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.

Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of business acquisition, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.

“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in many years of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Pennsylvania University.

The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.

“It is often framed as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.

The Additional Factor: Donald Trump

The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.

Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in White House briefings.

Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.

Trump has reason to like that company more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.

Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.

An Outcome of Continued Turmoil

Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That setup could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.

According to Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should prohibit both deals.

“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu argued.

The Core Challenge and a Way Ahead

No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the underlying crisis remains.

“The present media landscape is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.

Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will never happen.

Measures that support 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 essential for a healthy democracy.

In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN cannot be tools in the latest corporate chess match.