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This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread concerning an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.

While CNN is certainly not a perfect news source, her words resonated for numerous observers. It is one of the organizations where one can locate grounded and generally reliable reporting – notably during fast-moving events like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Precarious Situation Amid a High-Stakes Tug-of-War

However CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious position as two giant media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

No matter the result, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a major game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.

“Here is one more case of the profound systemic issues with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Penn.

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

“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.

The Additional Element: Donald Trump

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

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

Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.

There is a basis to favor that company more. For one thing, it is led 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 installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.

An Outcome of Further Instability

Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That setup could position CNN for a future sale. It never ends.

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

“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be challenged by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.

The Core Problem and a Potential Solution

Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the larger issue persists.

“What we have now is a profoundly system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.

Can reform occur 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.

Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are essential for a robust democracy.

In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the newest acquisition battle.