🔗 Share this article

On Thursday evening, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.

Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words rang true to many. It is one of the outlets where there exists grounded and mostly reliable reporting – notably during crises like the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Vulnerable Position During a Corporate Struggle

Yet the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two huge media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a major game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.

“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.

“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.

The Complicating Factor: Political Influence

The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” foe.

Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.

Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.

He has grounds to prefer that suitor more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.

Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.

An Outcome of Continued Uncertainty

It is important to note, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.

If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.

“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu argued.

The Core Challenge and a Potential Solution

Whatever happens in this situation, the larger issue persists.

“Our current system is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.

Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will never happen.

Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are vital for a healthy democracy.

In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pawns in the most recent merger game.