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This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.

Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where you can find grounded and mostly reliable reporting – notably during fast-moving events like the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Vulnerable Situation Amid a Corporate Struggle

Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two massive media empires vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.

No matter the result, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what benefits the news-consuming public.

“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.

The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.

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

A Further Element: Donald Trump

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

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

Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.

There is a basis to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.

Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.

A Future of More Uncertainty

Significantly, 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 hardly a secure position. That setup could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.

In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should prohibit both deals.

“Each proposed deal would be harmful to the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu argued.

The Core Challenge and a Path Forward

No matter the outcome in this situation, the larger issue endures.

“Our current system is a profoundly 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 profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.

Will that happen in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.

Measures that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are essential for a healthy democracy.

Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the most recent corporate chess match.