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White House Could Use AT&T/Time Warner Deal As 'Leverage' Against CNN (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report via Ars Technica: AT&T seems to be on track to close its purchase of Time Warner Inc., but President Donald Trump's hatred of Time Warner property CNN could still be a "wild card" in the deal. Trump's feud with CNN was described yesterday in a New York Times article titled "The Network Against the Leader of the Free World." Within that article is one tidbit that could affect AT&T's proposed $85.4 billion purchase of Time Warner, which owns CNN and other media properties such as HBO and Turner Broadcasting System: "White House advisers have discussed a potential point of leverage over their adversary, a senior administration official said: a pending merger between CNN's parent company, Time Warner, and AT&T. Mr. Trump's Justice Department will decide whether to approve the merger, and while analysts say there is little to stop the deal from moving forward, the president's animus toward CNN remains a wild card."
Separately, The Daily Caller wrote today that Trump doesn't want the merger to be approved unless CNN President Jeff Zucker is fired. The conservative news website attributed the information to "a source familiar with President Trump's thinking." Zucker told the New York Times that the pending merger has not affected his journalistic or management decisions.
Separately, The Daily Caller wrote today that Trump doesn't want the merger to be approved unless CNN President Jeff Zucker is fired. The conservative news website attributed the information to "a source familiar with President Trump's thinking." Zucker told the New York Times that the pending merger has not affected his journalistic or management decisions.
I'm always interested in the opinions of folks if any article, regardless of the media source, replaced Trump with Obama in the article.
[John]
I'm no fan of Obama, but I don't think he ever did anything remotely similar to this, (allegedly) threatening to kill a merger unless a news network stops criticizing him. The most he ever did was threaten to exclude Fox from the press pool at an event (and then backed down).
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
WTF? are you kidding me? 1) Yes they did 2) It is their job to report on bad shit our leaders do 3) Retaliation against a free press from the white house is NOT ok.
He hasn't actually done what is stated in this article. Unnamed "White House advisers" and "source familiar with President Trump’s thinking". Yes, it is common for news agencies to report based on anonymous sources, but given the lack of journalistic integrity that has plagued coverage of Trump, shit like this has no place in headlines without verifiable sources. When I see any story about anybody that has it's sole source for such a damning quote being an anonymous source with nothing else to back it up, I immediately dismiss it.
Which, in the case of this administration, would have lead to you dismissing a lot of accurate news reports. Anonymous sources should be treated with caution yes, but not immediate dismissal.
Doesn't matter if it's Trump, Obama, someone I love, or someone I hate. Literally none of the Trump connections to Russia in the formerly "earth shattering" Russia Dossier have been proven true.
Which is why CNN only reported on the existence of the dossier, they didn't break it.
Yet it was bandied about like it was Trump's death sentence. Where are all the retractions?
Because there's nothing to retract, it hasn't been falsified. Of course the explosive claims are hard to falsify, which is one of the reasons CNN, despite having access to the dossier, deliberately held back the actual contents (until Buzzfeed broke them, an act most media organizations disagreed with).
Three people at CNN fired? That's it? Bullshit. They just double down and go after the next fake story.
CNN published one legitimately inaccurate story, and fired everyone involved.
Can you imagine if Breitbart or even Fox News was held to that standard? Would Sean Spicer even last through a single press conference?
I stole this Sig
+5 insightful? TimeWarner Cable is not part of Comcast.