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On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.

Although it is by no means a impeccable news source, her words rang true for a lot of people. It stands as one of the broadcasters where there exists reality-based and generally dependable reporting – especially during crises like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Vulnerable Position Amid a Business Tug-of-War

Yet CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious situation as two giant media corporations vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.

“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with origins in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.

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

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

The Complicating Layer: The Former President

This situation is complicated by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.

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

Trump now asserts that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.

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

The company, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.

An Outcome of Further Turmoil

Significantly, if Netflix prevails, 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 arrangement could set up CNN for another sale. The cycle continues.

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

“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.

The Bigger Problem and a Way Ahead

Whatever happens in this situation, the larger issue endures.

“Our current system is a highly anti-democratic system, but we must resist learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.

Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.

Measures that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are vital for a robust democracy.

In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the latest acquisition battle.