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On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled concerning the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.

While the network is hardly a flawless news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where there exists fact-based and largely trustworthy reporting – especially during breaking news situations such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Vulnerable Situation During a High-Stakes Tug-of-War

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

Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.

“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with origins in many years of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.

“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.

The Additional Layer: Donald Trump

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

Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.

Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he seems 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 run by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.

Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.

An Outcome of Further Instability

Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That structure could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.

According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.

“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.

The Fundamental Problem and a Path Forward

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

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

Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will never happen.

Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the consolidation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are essential for a healthy democracy.

In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN must not be pawns in the most recent corporate chess match.