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This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled about a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.

Although the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the outlets where you can find reality-based and largely dependable reporting – especially during crises such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Precarious State Amid a High-Stakes Struggle

However CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious state as two huge media corporations battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

No matter the result, the fate of CNN has become part of a major game of business acquisition, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.

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

The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.

“The narrative is crafted as a business story with influential figures as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.

A Further Element: Political Influence

The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.

Recall the cries of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation 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. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is one reason why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.

He has grounds to like that company 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.

Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.

An Outcome of More Turmoil

Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a independent unit. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That arrangement could set up CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.

If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.

“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.

The Fundamental Problem and a Path Forward

No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the underlying crisis remains.

“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.

Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.

Policies that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.

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