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This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread concerning an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.

While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her statement resonated for a lot of people. It remains one of the broadcasters where you can find fact-based and largely trustworthy reporting – particularly during fast-moving events like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Vulnerable Position During a High-Stakes Tug-of-War

But the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a uncertain state as two giant media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

Regardless of who wins, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a major game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.

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

The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a more important point.

“It is often framed as a financial tale with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.

The Additional Layer: The Former President

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

Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.

Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.

Trump has reason to favor that bidder 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, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that storied news network.

An Outcome of More Instability

Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That structure could position CNN for another sale. It never ends.

According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.

“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be opposed by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.

The Core Issue and a Way Ahead

No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the bigger problem endures.

“Our current system is a very structure that undermines democracy, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can address it.

Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will never happen.

Initiatives that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are vital for a functioning democracy.

In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN must not be pawns in the most recent corporate chess match.