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This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.

While it is by no means a perfect news source, her words seemed accurate for a lot of people. It stands as one of the outlets where one can locate fact-based and mostly reliable reporting – especially during breaking news situations such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Vulnerable State Amid a Corporate Struggle

However the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious position as two giant media corporations battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.

No matter the result, the future of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.

“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with origins in many years of governmental choices,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.

The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.

“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.

The Additional Element: The Former President

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

Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.

Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.

He has grounds to prefer 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 appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.

A Possibility of More Instability

Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That structure could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.

In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.

“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu stated.

The Bigger Problem and a Path Forward

No matter the outcome in this situation, the bigger problem remains.

“What we have now is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can address it.

Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.

Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a robust democracy.

When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the newest merger game.