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On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled regarding the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.

Although the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words rang true for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where one can locate grounded and mostly reliable reporting – notably during crises such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Precarious Situation During a Business Battle

Yet the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two giant media conglomerates vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.

“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.

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

“It gets presented as a business story with key players as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.

A Further Factor: Donald Trump

The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.

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

Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.

Trump has reason to favor that bidder 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 installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.

A Future of Continued Uncertainty

It is important to note, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That setup could position CNN for another sale. It never ends.

According to Timothy Wu, much of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should prohibit both deals.

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

The Fundamental Challenge and a Path Forward

No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the larger issue persists.

“The present media landscape is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.

Will that happen 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 should not imply it will not happen in the future.

Initiatives that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are essential for a robust democracy.

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