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This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.

Even though the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It is one of the outlets where one can locate grounded and largely trustworthy reporting – particularly during breaking news situations like the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Precarious Situation Amid a High-Stakes Struggle

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

Regardless of who wins, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.

“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.

The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.

“It is often framed as a business story with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.

The Complicating Factor: Donald Trump

The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.

Remember the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.

Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.

Trump has reason to like 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 installed the conservative Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that historic news network.

A Possibility of More Uncertainty

Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That structure could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. There is no finish line.

According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should disallow both deals.

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

The Fundamental Issue and a Potential Solution

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

“The present media landscape is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.

Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.

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

Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be tools in the most recent acquisition battle.