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On Thursday evening, as rumors swirled concerning the Brown University gunman, the network's Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.

Even though it is by no means a flawless news source, her message rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the broadcasters where you can find grounded and mostly trustworthy reporting – particularly during breaking news situations such as the one taking place close to a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Precarious Situation Amid a Corporate Struggle

However the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious situation as two giant media corporations compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.

No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.

“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with origins in many years of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, writer 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 – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.

“It gets presented as a financial tale with key players as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard explained.

The Complicating Layer: The Former President

The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.

Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.

Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.

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

Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.

An Outcome of Continued Turmoil

Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. Such a move could be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That setup 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 well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.

“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.

The Bigger Issue and a Potential Solution

No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the larger issue persists.

“Our current system is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can address it.

Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.

Measures that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a functioning democracy.

Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pawns in the most recent corporate chess match.