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Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.

While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her message rang true for numerous observers. It is one of the organizations where you can find reality-based and generally trustworthy reporting – especially during crises like the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Precarious State Amid a Corporate Battle

Yet the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two huge media conglomerates vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.

No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has turned into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.

“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.

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

“It gets presented as a business story with key players as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.

The Additional Element: Political Influence

The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.

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

Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.

Trump has reason to like that company more. For one thing, it is controlled 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 conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that venerable news network.

A Possibility of More Instability

Notably, if Netflix is successful, 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 secure position. That structure could set up CNN for a future sale. It never ends.

If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.

“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.

The Bigger Problem and a Path Forward

No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the underlying crisis persists.

“What we have now is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.

Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.

Policies that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are vital for a robust democracy.

Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN must not be tools in the most recent corporate chess match.