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On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation regarding an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.

Even though the network is hardly a perfect news source, her message seemed accurate for a lot of people. It stands as one of the organizations where there exists grounded and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during breaking news situations such as the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Precarious State Amid a Corporate Battle

But CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a uncertain situation as two giant media corporations battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of corporate ownership, instead of as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.

“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.

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

“It is often framed as a financial tale with key players as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.

A Further Layer: Political Influence

The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his chief “fake news” antagonist.

Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.

Trump now claims 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 appears to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.

Trump has reason to favor that company more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the ally of 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 editor-in-chief of that historic news network.

A Possibility of Further Uncertainty

Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a independent unit. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. It never ends.

According to Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.

“Either merger would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.

The Fundamental Problem and a Path Forward

No matter the outcome in this situation, the larger issue endures.

“What we have now is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to create this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.

Will that happen in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is a distant prospect now, but that should not imply it will never happen.

Policies that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in a handful of hands are not only possible – they are essential for a robust democracy.

Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the latest acquisition battle.