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On Thursday evening, while unconfirmed reports spread about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.

While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her words seemed accurate to many. It remains one of the organizations where there exists fact-based and generally dependable reporting – notably during crises such as the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.

An Uncertain Situation During a Corporate Struggle

But the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious state as two huge media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.

Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.

“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with origins in decades of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.

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

“It gets presented as a corporate drama with key players as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.

The Additional Factor: The Former President

The network's predicament is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.

Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.

Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.

There is a basis to prefer that suitor 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.

Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.

A Future of Further Turmoil

Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That structure could position CNN for another sale. It never ends.

In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should disallow both deals.

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

The Core Challenge and a Path Forward

Whatever happens with this particular battle, the larger issue endures.

“Our current system is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this profit-obsessed monster, and new 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? Change is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will never happen.

Measures that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a robust democracy.

In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN must not be tools in the latest corporate chess match.