🔗 Share this article

Late Thursday, while unconfirmed reports spread about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.

While CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her words resonated for numerous observers. It is one of the outlets where there exists grounded and largely dependable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events like the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.

An Uncertain State During a Business Tug-of-War

But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two massive media conglomerates vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

No matter the result, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.

“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.

The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.

“It gets presented as a corporate drama with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.

The Additional Layer: The Former President

The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.

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 White House briefings.

Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted 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 like that bidder 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.

The company, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.

A Possibility of Continued Instability

Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That structure could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.

In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should block both deals.

“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.

The Bigger Challenge and a Way Ahead

Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the larger issue persists.

“The present media landscape is a very anti-democratic system, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can address it.

Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.

Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.

In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pieces in the latest acquisition battle.