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On Thursday evening, amid swirling speculation concerning the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted on social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.

Although CNN is certainly not a flawless news source, her statement seemed accurate for a lot of people. It is one of the broadcasters where there exists fact-based and mostly trustworthy reporting – particularly during crises like the one taking place in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Vulnerable Situation Amid a High-Stakes Tug-of-War

However CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious position as two giant media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.

Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has been drawn into a high-risk game of mergers and acquisitions, rather than as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.

“This represents another instance of the deep structural problems with origins in decades of governmental choices,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.

The speculation about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – will it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.

“The narrative is crafted as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard explained.

A Further Layer: The Former President

The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s opinions about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.

Remember the chants of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration’s punitive withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in White House briefings.

Trump now claims that CNN needs new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will protect him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he appears to support Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.

There is a basis to favor that bidder more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the pro-Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.

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

An Outcome of Continued Turmoil

Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be separated into a separate entity. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a secure position. That structure could set up CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.

In the view of Timothy Wu, much of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should prohibit both deals.

“Both acquisition attempts would be detrimental to the country, and both should be contested by the government,” Wu stated.

The Bigger Problem and a Path Forward

Whatever happens with this particular battle, the bigger problem endures.

“What we have now is a very anti-democratic system, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Regulatory choices – originating in the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can address it.

Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Overhaul is highly improbable now, but that is not to say it will not happen in the future.

Measures that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and outlaw the concentration of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are essential for a functioning democracy.

In the world of media ownership, bigger isn’t better. And news organizations including CNN cannot be tools in the newest merger game.