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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 channel's 9pm newscast.

While the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her message resonated for numerous observers. It stands as one of the broadcasters where there exists grounded and generally trustworthy reporting – particularly during breaking news situations like the one taking place near a New Hampshire storage facility.

An Uncertain Position During a Corporate Tug-of-War

However CNN, now middle-aged, finds itself in a uncertain position as two giant media conglomerates vie for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.

No matter the result, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-risk game of business acquisition, not as a question of what helps the information-seeking public.

“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of regulatory actions,” noted Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Penn.

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

“It gets presented as a corporate drama with key players as the protagonists, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.

The Additional Element: Donald Trump

The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.

Think back to the cries of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his team's disciplinary revocation of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.

Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from negative coverage and examination. That is one reason why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.

He has grounds 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.

The company, owner of CBS News, also recently installed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.

A Future of More Turmoil

Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That arrangement could position CNN for a future sale. It never ends.

If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.

“Each proposed deal would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu stated.

The Fundamental Problem and a Way Ahead

Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the bigger problem persists.

“The present media landscape is a very anti-democratic system, but we must resist the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard noted. Government actions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.

Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Overhaul is a distant prospect now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.

Initiatives that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the accumulation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a robust democracy.

In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be pawns in the most recent corporate chess match.