🔗 Share this article

On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation regarding an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.

Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her statement rang true to many. It remains one of the broadcasters where one can locate fact-based and generally reliable reporting – especially during crises such as the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Precarious Situation Amid a Business Tug-of-War

But CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain position as two massive media empires battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.

No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.

“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.

The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.

“It is often framed as a financial tale with key players as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.

The Complicating Layer: Political Influence

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

Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's 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 CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.

There is a basis to favor 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.

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

A Future of Further Turmoil

Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.

If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.

“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.

The Core Challenge and a Path Forward

No matter the outcome in this situation, the underlying crisis endures.

“What we have now is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.

Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.

Policies that support independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are vital for a functioning democracy.

In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pieces in the latest corporate chess match.