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On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.

Even though CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her message resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the outlets where there exists reality-based and largely trustworthy reporting – particularly during breaking news situations such as the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Vulnerable State Amid a Corporate Tug-of-War

But the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two giant media conglomerates compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

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

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

The conjecture about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – fails to grasp a broader point.

“It gets presented as a financial tale with key players as the central actors, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.

The Complicating Factor: Donald Trump

The network's predicament is complicated by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.

Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary suspension of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his clashes with Collins in White House briefings.

Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from journalistic oversight. That is a factor in why he appears to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.

He has grounds to favor 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, owner of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the top editor of that venerable news network.

A Possibility of More Instability

Significantly, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. This might be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.

In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should prohibit both deals.

“Both acquisition attempts would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by regulators,” Wu argued.

The Core Problem and a Way Ahead

No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the underlying crisis remains.

“What we have now is a very system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can fix it.

Will that happen in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will be impossible forever.

Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are vital for a robust democracy.

When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN cannot be tools in the most recent merger game.