🔗 Share this article

Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.

While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the outlets where you can find fact-based and largely trustworthy reporting – particularly during fast-moving events like the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.

An Uncertain Situation During a Corporate Tug-of-War

However 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 corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.

Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.

“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.

“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with key players as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.

The Additional Element: The Former President

This situation is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.

Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.

Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.

There is a basis to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.

The company, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.

An Outcome of Further Uncertainty

Significantly, if Netflix wins, 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 setup could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. It never ends.

If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice 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 opposed by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.

The Fundamental Problem and a Potential Solution

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

“What we have now is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.

Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.

Measures that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are necessary for a robust democracy.

Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN cannot be tools in the latest corporate chess match.