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Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation regarding an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.

While CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the broadcasters where you can find fact-based and largely dependable reporting – notably during breaking news situations like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

An Uncertain Position During a High-Stakes Battle

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

Regardless of who wins, the future of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.

“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with origins in decades of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.

The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important point.

“The narrative is crafted as a business story with key players as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.

A Further Factor: Donald Trump

This situation is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.

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

Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he seems to favor 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 Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.

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

A Future of Further Instability

Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That setup could pave the way for CNN for another sale. It never ends.

If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that anti-trust laws should block both deals.

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

The Bigger Problem and a Path Forward

Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the larger issue endures.

“Our current system is a highly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.

Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.

Policies that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a healthy democracy.

In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the most recent acquisition battle.