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On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.

Although the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It is one of the outlets where one can locate grounded and mostly trustworthy reporting – especially during breaking news situations such as the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Vulnerable Situation Amid a Business Tug-of-War

Yet the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious state as two giant media corporations compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.

No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has become part of a major game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.

“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with roots in many years of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.

The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.

“It is often framed as a business story with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.

A Further Factor: Political Influence

The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.

Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in press briefings.

Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.

Trump has reason 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 appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.

An Outcome of Further Instability

Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a standalone company. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That structure could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.

In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should block both deals.

“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu recently wrote.

The Bigger Challenge and a Way Ahead

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

“Our current system is a very system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.

Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.

Measures that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are vital for a robust democracy.

In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN cannot be pieces in the newest merger game.