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This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.

While CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her statement seemed accurate to many. It remains one of the broadcasters where you can find fact-based and largely trustworthy reporting – notably during crises like the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Precarious Position During a High-Stakes Battle

However CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two huge media corporations vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of business acquisition, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.

“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.

The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.

“It is often framed as a corporate drama with key players as the main characters, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.

A Further Layer: The Former President

The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.

Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in press briefings.

Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.

He has grounds to like 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.

Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.

A Possibility of Continued Turmoil

Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That structure could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.

In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should prohibit both deals.

“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu argued.

The Core Challenge and a Way Ahead

Whatever happens with this particular battle, the underlying crisis endures.

“Our current system is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.

Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will never happen.

Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are vital for a functioning democracy.

In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN must not be pawns in the most recent merger game.