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On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.

Although it is by no means a flawless news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the organizations where you can find fact-based and mostly reliable reporting – particularly during crises such as the one developing near a New Hampshire storage facility.

An Uncertain Position Amid a Corporate Tug-of-War

However the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a precarious state as two giant media empires battle over ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.

No matter the result, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.

“This is yet another example of the deep structural problems with roots in decades of governmental choices,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.

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

“The narrative is crafted as a business story with key players as the main characters, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard explained.

The Complicating Factor: Political Influence

The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has consistently labeled as perhaps his primary “fake news” antagonist.

Recall the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.

Trump now says that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will shield him from negative coverage and examination. That is a factor in why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.

Trump has reason to favor that suitor more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.

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

A Possibility of More Uncertainty

It is important to note, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for a future sale. There is no finish line.

If you ask Timothy Wu, a lot of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst 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 opposed by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.

The Fundamental Challenge and a Path Forward

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

“What we have now is a profoundly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to the belief that change is impossible,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and new policy decisions can tackle it.

Can reform occur in an era where the top communications regulator will not confirm that the agency is independent? Change is highly improbable now, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.

Measures that support independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are necessary for a robust democracy.

In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the newest merger game.