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Late Thursday, as rumors swirled regarding the Brown University gunman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.

Although CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her words seemed accurate for numerous observers. It remains one of the organizations where there exists grounded and mostly reliable reporting – especially during crises like the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Vulnerable State Amid a Corporate Battle

Yet CNN, now 45 years old, finds itself in a precarious situation as two massive media empires 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 mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.

“This represents another instance of the profound systemic issues with roots in many years of regulatory actions,” stated Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Pennsylvania University.

The debate about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a larger point.

“It gets presented as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the societal benefit,” Pickard added.

The Additional Element: Donald Trump

This situation is further muddied by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his chief “fake news” adversary.

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

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

He has grounds to like that company more. For one thing, it is led by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.

Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the conservative Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that historic news network.

A Future of Continued Turmoil

Notably, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could position CNN for a future sale. It never ends.

According to 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 harmful to the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu recently wrote.

The Fundamental Issue and a Path Forward

No matter the outcome with this particular battle, the bigger problem remains.

“Our current system is a highly anti-democratic system, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard noted. Regulatory choices – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can address it.

Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will never happen.

Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in very few hands are not only possible – they are vital for a robust democracy.

When it comes to media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the newest acquisition battle.