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On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.

Although CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where you can find grounded and largely dependable reporting – especially during fast-moving events such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Precarious Position Amid a High-Stakes Struggle

But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two massive media corporations vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.

Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.

“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

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

“It gets presented as a corporate drama with influential figures as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.

The Complicating Layer: The Former President

The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “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 clashes with Collins in press briefings.

Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.

He has grounds to prefer that bidder more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.

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

A Future of Further Turmoil

Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That setup could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.

If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.

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

The Fundamental Problem and a Way Ahead

No matter the outcome in this situation, the larger issue endures.

“What we have now is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can tackle 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.

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

In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pawns in the latest merger game.