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This past Thursday night, while unconfirmed reports spread concerning a shooting at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins took to social media, highlighting the uncertainty and pointing viewers to her channel's 9pm newscast.

While the network is hardly a perfect news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the outlets where there exists grounded and generally dependable reporting – notably during breaking news situations such as the one unfolding near a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Vulnerable Situation During a High-Stakes Battle

However the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable position as two giant media conglomerates compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.

No matter the result, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of mergers and acquisitions, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.

“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with roots in many years of policy decisions,” stated Victor Pickard, writer of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the Pennsylvania University.

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

“It is often framed as a corporate drama with powerful individuals as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the common good,” Pickard said.

The Additional Element: Political Influence

The CNN scenario is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” foe.

Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at the president’s rallies, his administration's retaliatory withdrawal 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 insulate him from criticism and scrutiny. That is one reason why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.

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

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

A Possibility of More Uncertainty

It is important to note, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a safe harbor. That setup could position CNN for another sale. The cycle continues.

In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is against the law, anyway. The influential voice of big tech’s dominance recently argued that competition laws should block 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 Problem and a Path Forward

Regardless of the resolution with this particular battle, the bigger problem remains.

“Our current system is a highly system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to learned helplessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.

Can reform occur in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible forever.

Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in a handful of hands are achievable – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.

Regarding media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations like CNN shouldn’t be tools in the newest merger game.