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This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread about the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.

While it is by no means a impeccable news source, her words seemed accurate for numerous observers. It is one of the broadcasters where you can find grounded and largely reliable reporting – notably during breaking news situations like the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Precarious Situation During a Business Battle

However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a uncertain state as two giant media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.

No matter the result, the destiny of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.

“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” said Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.

The conjecture about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a more important point.

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

The Complicating Factor: The Former President

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

Recall the cries of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his administration’s punitive suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in official meetings.

Trump now asserts that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from criticism and scrutiny. That is a factor in why he seems to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.

Trump has reason to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.

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

A Future of More Turmoil

Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That structure could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.

In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should block both deals.

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

The Bigger Problem and a Path Forward

Whatever happens regarding CNN, the bigger problem remains.

“Our current system is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.

Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is very unlikely now, but that is not to say it will never happen.

Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a robust democracy.

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