🔗 Share this article

On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation concerning an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.

While CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her words seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where one can locate fact-based and generally trustworthy reporting – notably during breaking news situations like the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.

An Uncertain Situation Amid a Business Battle

But the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two giant media corporations battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.

“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.

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

“It is often framed as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.

The Additional Factor: The Former President

This situation is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.

Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.

Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.

He has grounds to favor that bidder 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 placed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.

A Possibility of Further Uncertainty

Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That arrangement could position CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.

If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.

“Each proposed deal would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.

The Fundamental Challenge and a Path Forward

Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the larger issue endures.

“Our current system is a highly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.

Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will never happen.

Measures that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.

In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pieces in the most recent corporate chess match.