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Late Thursday, while unconfirmed reports spread concerning a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, noting the confusion and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.

Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message resonated to many. It is one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and mostly dependable reporting – especially during crises such as the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.

An Uncertain Situation During a High-Stakes Battle

But CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two massive media empires vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has become part of a major game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.

“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

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

“The narrative is crafted as a financial tale with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.

The Additional Layer: Donald Trump

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

Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration's retaliatory suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in press briefings.

Trump now says 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 aggressive takeover attempt.

He has grounds to like that suitor more. For one thing, it is led 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 placed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.

A Future of Further Uncertainty

Significantly, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That setup could pave the way for CNN for another sale. It never ends.

In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should disallow both deals.

“Either merger would be bad for the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu argued.

The Bigger Problem and a Way Ahead

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

“Our current system is a highly anti-democratic system, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.

Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.

Measures that bolster independent news organizations, aid local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the accumulation of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a healthy democracy.

When it comes to media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pieces in the newest merger game.