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This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.

While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her statement seemed accurate for numerous observers. It stands as one of the outlets where there exists fact-based and mostly dependable reporting – notably during crises like the one developing close to a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Vulnerable State Amid a Business Tug-of-War

But the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two massive media corporations vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has turned into a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, rather than as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.

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

The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.

“It is often framed as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard said.

The Complicating Factor: The Former President

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

Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.

Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.

He has grounds to prefer that company more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.

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

A Possibility of Further Instability

Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a standalone company. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That structure could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.

According to Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should prohibit both deals.

“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu stated.

The Bigger Challenge and a Potential Solution

Whatever happens with this particular battle, the underlying crisis endures.

“Our current system is a highly anti-democratic system, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.

Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will never happen.

Initiatives that support independent news organizations, aid local journalism, fund public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a robust democracy.

When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be tools in the newest corporate chess match.