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Late Thursday, amid swirling speculation regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.

While it is by no means a flawless news source, her message seemed accurate for numerous observers. It stands as one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and mostly dependable reporting – notably during crises like the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Vulnerable State Amid a Business Battle

But the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious position as two massive media empires vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.

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

“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with roots in many years of policy decisions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

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

“It gets presented as a financial tale with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.

The Additional Layer: Donald Trump

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

Remember the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.

Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will insulate him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.

Trump has reason to prefer that company 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, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, noted for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.

A Possibility of Continued Uncertainty

It is important to note, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a safe harbor. That setup could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. The cycle continues.

According to Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should prohibit both deals.

“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.

The Bigger Issue and a Path Forward

Whatever happens with this particular battle, the larger issue remains.

“The present media landscape is a very system hostile to democracy, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.

Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will be impossible forever.

Measures that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in very few hands are within reach – they are vital for a functioning democracy.

In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the newest corporate chess match.