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This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.

Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her words resonated to many. It remains one of the organizations where one can locate fact-based and generally dependable reporting – particularly during fast-moving events like the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Precarious State During a High-Stakes Battle

Yet the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two huge media corporations vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.

Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.

“This represents another instance of the fundamental flaws with origins in decades of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.

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

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

The Additional Element: The Former President

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

Think back to 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 says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.

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 placed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.

A Possibility of Further Turmoil

Notably, if Netflix wins, 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 far from a secure position. That arrangement could position CNN for another sale. The cycle continues.

If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should block both deals.

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

The Bigger Problem and a Path Forward

Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the underlying crisis persists.

“Our current system is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.

Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that is not to say it will never happen.

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

Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN cannot be tools in the latest merger game.