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On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation regarding an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.

While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message seemed accurate for a lot of people. It is one of the broadcasters where you can find fact-based and generally dependable reporting – particularly during crises such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Precarious Position During a Corporate Struggle

Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two massive media corporations vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has become part of a major game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.

“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Pennsylvania University.

The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.

“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.

The Complicating Element: Political Influence

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

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

Trump now claims that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.

Trump has reason to favor 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.

The company, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.

A Possibility of Further Instability

Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That setup could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.

If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.

“Both acquisition attempts would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu argued.

The Core Challenge and a Way Ahead

Whatever happens regarding CNN, the underlying crisis remains.

“What we have now is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.

Is this likely in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.

Measures that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are essential for a healthy democracy.

In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the newest corporate chess match.