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This past Thursday night, as rumors swirled concerning a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her network’s 9pm newscast.

While the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words rang true to many. It stands as one of the broadcasters where one can locate fact-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – notably during crises like the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Precarious Situation Amid a Corporate Struggle

Yet CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two huge media empires battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has become part of a major game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.

“Here is one more case of the fundamental flaws with origins in many years of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.

The debate about who will own Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a more important 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 Factor: Political Influence

The CNN scenario is further muddied by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance 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 retaliatory withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in official meetings.

Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. 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 bidder more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.

Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.

A Future of Further Instability

Notably, if Netflix is successful, 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 guarantee of stability. That structure could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. The cycle continues.

In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is a violation of antitrust statutes, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should block both deals.

“Either merger would be harmful to the country, and both should be opposed by the government,” Wu stated.

The Fundamental Problem and a Potential Solution

Regardless of the resolution in this situation, the underlying crisis persists.

“What we have now is a highly anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.

Is this likely in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.

Initiatives that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are necessary for a robust democracy.

Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations including CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the most recent corporate chess match.