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Late Thursday, while unconfirmed reports spread about 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.

While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where one can locate fact-based and generally trustworthy reporting – especially during crises like the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Vulnerable Situation During a Corporate Battle

Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious position as two giant media corporations compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

No matter the result, the future of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.

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

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

“It gets presented as a financial tale with key players as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.

A Further Element: Donald Trump

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

Recall the shouts 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 White House briefings.

Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.

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.

The company, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.

A Possibility of Further Instability

Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That setup could set up CNN for another sale. The cycle continues.

If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.

“Each proposed deal would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu argued.

The Bigger Issue and a Potential Solution

Whatever happens in this situation, the bigger problem remains.

“The present media landscape is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can address it.

Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will never happen.

Measures that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are essential for a robust democracy.

In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the latest corporate chess match.