This Corporate Battle Over CNN Shows The Extent to Which Broken US Media Truly Is.

Late Thursday, as rumors swirled about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.

Even though CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where you can find grounded and mostly trustworthy reporting – especially during fast-moving events like the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Vulnerable Situation Amid a Corporate Tug-of-War

But CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious situation as two huge media conglomerates compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.

“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” 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 larger point.

“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with influential figures as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.

The Additional Layer: Political Influence

The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.

Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes 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 part of 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 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.

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

A Future of More Instability

It is important to note, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That setup could set up CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.

According to Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should block both deals.

“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.

The Fundamental Issue and a Way Ahead

Whatever happens regarding CNN, the underlying crisis persists.

“Our current system is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.

Can reform occur 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 never happen.

Policies that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are necessary for a robust democracy.

When it comes to media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the latest merger game.