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On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation regarding an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.

Even though the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the outlets where one can locate grounded and mostly trustworthy reporting – notably during breaking news situations like the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Precarious Position During a Corporate Battle

But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two giant media corporations compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

No matter the result, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.

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

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

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

The Complicating Factor: Political Influence

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

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

Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.

There is a basis to favor that suitor 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, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that storied news network.

A Possibility of Continued Turmoil

Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That arrangement could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.

In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should block both deals.

“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.

The Bigger Issue and a Path Forward

Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the bigger problem remains.

“What we have now is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.

Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.

Policies that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.

When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN cannot be pawns in the newest corporate chess match.