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This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation concerning a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.

Although CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her message rang true for a lot of people. It is one of the broadcasters where you can find fact-based and generally reliable reporting – notably during crises such as the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Precarious Situation During a Corporate Battle

However the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two giant media corporations battle over ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.

Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has become part of a major game of business acquisition, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.

“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in many years of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.

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

“It is often framed as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.

The Additional Factor: Political Influence

The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” foe.

Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.

Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.

He has grounds to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is run 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, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.

A Possibility of Continued Turmoil

Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a safe harbor. That arrangement could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.

In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should prohibit both deals.

“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.

The Bigger Problem and a Path Forward

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

“Our current system is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.

Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.

Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are essential for a functioning democracy.

Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN must not be tools in the latest corporate chess match.