The Corporate Battle Over CNN Highlights How Broken US Journalism Has Become.

Late Thursday, as rumors swirled about an incident at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, noting the confusion and pointing viewers to her network’s 9pm newscast.

Although the network is hardly a impeccable news source, her words resonated for a lot of people. It is one of the organizations where you can find reality-based and mostly dependable reporting – especially during crises like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.

A Precarious Situation Amid a Business Tug-of-War

However the news network, now 45 years old, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two massive media empires compete for ownership of its corporate owner, Warner Bros Discovery.

No matter the result, the future of CNN has been drawn into a major game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.

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

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

“The narrative is crafted as a business story with powerful individuals as the central actors, but there is hardly any discussion of the public interest,” Pickard added.

The Complicating Factor: The Former President

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

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

Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will shield him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he seems to favor Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.

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

Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently installed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the lead editor of that venerable news network.

An Outcome of Continued Instability

Notably, if Netflix prevails, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a standalone company. That would be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a secure position. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for another sale. There is no finish line.

If you ask Timothy Wu, much of this is illegal, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance stated that competition laws should prohibit both deals.

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

The Bigger Issue and a Potential Solution

Regardless of the resolution regarding CNN, the bigger problem persists.

“Our current system is a very system hostile to democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this profit-obsessed monster, and revised policy decisions can fix it.

Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC refuses to acknowledge that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will never happen.

Measures that strengthen independent news organizations, aid local journalism, subsidize public media, and prevent the concentration of media power in too few hands are within reach – they are essential for a robust democracy.

In the world of media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations like CNN must not be tools in the latest merger game.