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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.
He has neither ability.
CNN is garbage. They're much more interested in getting Trump impeached then they are reporting the news.
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]
Shit better not happen!
Has any former President ever been so open in his abuse of power?
While I am against the AT&T/Time-Warner merger (and was also against the Comcast/NBC-Universal merger), I think this goes too far. The Press is part of the checks and balances of the government. There have been lots of bad press against all former Presidents, but the President didn't use his powers against them like this. This blatantly violates the First Amendment.https://yro.slashdot.org/story/17/07/06/2255213/white-house-could-use-atttime-warner-deal-as-leverage-against-cnn#
Since the overturn of Citizens United, I'm really worried about corporations' well-being. AT&T only has a market cap of $222.95 billion, and little 'ol Time Warner is only worth $78.66 billion. How are they going to look out for their own interests in the same way that a real life citizen making $40k/year would?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Yeah, right. More news about going to Mars, please.
Queue up the trumphumps.
Let's remember the Daily Caller isn't a real news source. It's either non-english speakers out of Texas rewording mainstream news, or it's a very poor experiment in AI.
Whether it's CNN or any other news organization, does it bother others when you read shit like this;
"The conservative news website attributed the information to "a source familiar with President Trump's thinking."
I AM conservative and I call bullshit on printing hearsay like this. Come on media, print what he says, not what others think he his thinking is like.
And it was Fox News involved in a M&A, everyone would be applauding this. Even though this is hearsay and not backed up with even a single fact, it's already the end of the world.
The press referenced in the first amendment is the printing press, which refers to the concept of being free to publish your speech. There is absolutely not one iota of protection in the first amendment for journalism as a profession. Their "rights" are the same as yours and nothing more: to speak and publish freely without prior restraint. The professional behavior of journalists is very much a matter of public scrutiny as issues such as corporate behavior and protecting sources are extra-constitutional matters of statutory and common law, not constitutional rights.
CNN bragged, as breaking news, about finding and humiliating the person who made a gif about them. I have no sympathy for them or their daddy companies. I dont want to see Trump win. I want to see AT&T-Bag broken.
Goddamn facist asshole.
Soros losers accept it (u lost): CNN's John Bonnifield (producer) admits CNN's Russia bs = bs. It makes CNN pure bs FAKE news.
The basis of article is an anonymous source. I can't belive anything an unknown source say in these times of 'fake news'. I need solid facts.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
On the one hand, Trump is a bit of a cry-bully and CNN can say anything they want.
On the other, when an "unnamed source" says that Trump said something mean to someone in the oval office and CNN covers it for five hours straight, you tend to wonder what the hell is going on. There's some crazy deal going on with Qatar that's just a *bit* more important, why aren't they covering that more?
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Is that serious? In which way is that then different from Turkey's Erdogan or Hungary's Orbán? Or Kim-Yong-Un?
Only if Trump is first on board with a one-way ticket. The world would jump with joy.
Sooo... unnamed sources say "might" and "could" and "maybe" and some person with a persecution complex (who's actually stomping on citizens right to free speech) complains that his multi-100's of billion merger might not work if someone else interferes... maybe?
WTF. This isn't fucking news. Call me when they actually DO something against the merger.
Just go look at #cnnblackmail on twitter and you will see why CNN needs its cable cut.
We don't need some propaganda fake network news brand anymore. Nobody watches it. Get it out of airports. CNN advertisers should also be shamed. The entire network is a joke, unless you are into fake news galore!
Oh, and by the way, everyone should put their best burn CNN meme idea into the list here: https://goo.gl/Jt4UTb
Employees of Elon Musk's 'Red Company' are complaining about lack of pay and employment termination resulting in employee termination, along with the horrible working conditions and an environment in which sexual favors are required just to recieve your paycheck or stay employed.
The future is bright indeed... or is that the oxygen deprivation?!?!
AT&T is trying to merge with TW which is also part of Comcast. As if you didn't have choices before, now they'll have virtually all of the DSL, Cable and Wireless market as well as all the media companies that come along under one big corporation. I thought Ma Bell was split up to prevent these kinds of things.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
The GOP promise is small government. A government that gets out of the way and lets business do what it wants. Yet the GOP seems to really really like getting in there and making things personal. This is the exact opposite of small government.
Sure, Trump may have groused to several of the people who he works with--but for this to be made a condition of the sale would open a huge legal can of worms.
Which is why I would take a wait and see attitude here. My guess is it won't happen: the Trump Administration won't meddle with the inner workings of CNN as a condition of the sale.
On the flip side, if the Trump Administration does do this, pop some popcorn and watch the feathers fly! Because this would guarantee that the anti-trust regulations and the business regulation powers of the government would fly up against some hard Constitutional limits--and my guess is it would define how we see the SEC in the news for at least a few years. Worse, I think this would make some very interesting bedfellows as right-of-center anti-regulation conservatives (who think mergers like this should never require oversight) find themselves in bed with left-of-center "don't mess with my journalism we hate Trump" types.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/p...
Okay, while the merger I am not in favor of, using this as leverage by the government is basically manipulating the press which the government is not supposed to (okay, we know they do it, we know they give "recommendations" on what to publish but not blatantly bullying the press). The "leader of the free world" is trying to lead us into "A Brave New World" that could bring us closer to "The Handmaid's Tale". . This is getting scary.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
I'll take Obama for $1000 Alex
The most troubling phrase in this entire article is "Mr. Trump's Justice Department will decide."
True, the Justice Department is in the Executive branch of the US government but its duty is not to carry out the wishes of the President. Its duty is to enforce the laws of the land and execute justice proceedings. I suppose I'm naive to think this is what actually happens.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, CNN.
If that happens, this "person" who happens to be in the oval office will be committing an act of personal vengeance using the power of his office. That is UNACCEPTABLE. It is unethical and economically disastrous. What kind of business environment would we be fostering if companies could not rely on being treated fairly under the law?
"a source familiar with President Trump's thinking." Anyone else notice this? No basis in anything just flamebait
Well if the New York Times says so...
This isn't a feud between parties, this is Trump acting like a spoiled child per usual. He's abusing his power, also per usual, this time to shut down a conduit of free speech.
a source familiar with President Trump's thinking
This simply doesn't happen
Fake News has found its way to Slashdot.
Using government power to punish someone you don't like, that's the very essence of the swamp.
Whenever mergers happen, plenty of staff is made "redundant". Even management who loses the power struggle gets pushed out. So why won't Jeff Zuker take one for the team? Those sociopaths who want to run government like a business should be happy that somebody is taking them at their word!
You know when you go into a public restroom and they only have one sit down stall. You notice its clogged up with someone's shit but you don't have a choice so you just shit and then it all merges into one bowl of filth. The next guy that comes along doesn't have a choice on which stall to use but it doesn't matter because the toilet bowl was full of shit to begin with. The point is they need to put in another stall so people have options not just combine all the shit into one giant shit bowl.
Trick Question.
The US has never had a liberal president.
What about CNN's feud with Trump???
CNN started this feud.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX2uR-KqD8o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P843ju6YYI4
Unnamed sources are and have been common in news. "Deep Throat" in the Nixon scandal was an unnamed source (and a key). The news org is usually confident enough in the source to publish the results. If the org calls wolf too many times, their reputation is damaged. The org is betting on their reputation when they do it.
CNN should get some kudos for withdrawing their quote after publishing it. They didn't have to. New info often comes up later; it's why it's called "news".
Table-ized A.I.
Since you are asking for speculation - I'll give it to you.
Obama was at war with Fox News during his entire administration:
http://www.newsweek.com/when-o...
Don't think for a minute that if the opportunity to put the screws to Fox presented itself, Obama would have passed.
CNN has clearly failed. They're organizing witch hunts because someone posted silly insults about them on the internet. It would be perfectly reasonable for Trump to block further media collusion and defend Net Neutrality by blocking some of the largest ISP/news sources from consolidating and leaving the people with no alternatives.
Jews believe this about others they call goyim/gentiles: Jews = biggest racists of all (for which they "jew guilt" you for no less! They're hypocrites known as thieves all thru history or were Argentines in the 1940 under Perrone, Spanish inquistion, France (1306), Egypt (despoiled/robbed by jews), Arabs (pre & post 1948), England (1330 Edward longshanks), Romans under titus, Russia pogroms and Germany who got rid of them from their nations nazi german's too? No. Should anyone doubt any of this see Jacob Javits' crony Rosenthal spill the beans on it https://justice4poland.com/2016/12/12/the-hidden-tyranny-shocking-1976-interview-with-zionist-harold-wallace-rosenthal/ where he called all Christianity fools for helping Israel and the biggest scam of all time per their beliefs below from their Talmud. This is the province of the synagogue of Satan (Khazar/Pharisees whom Jesus Christ himself kicked to the curb out of the temple):
1. Sanhedrin 59a: "Murdering Goyim is like killing a wild animal."
2. Abodah Zara 26b: "Even the best of the Gentiles should be killed."
3. Sanhedrin 59a: "A goy (Gentile) who pries into The Law (Talmud) is guilty of death."
4. Yebhamoth 11b: "Sexual intercourse with a little girl is permitted if she is three years of age."
5. Schabouth Hag. 6d: "Jews may swear falsely by use of subterfuge wording."
6. Hilkkoth Akum X1: "Do not save Goyim in danger of death."
7. Hilkkoth Akum X1: "Show no mercy to the Goyim."
8. Choschen Hamm 388, 15: "If it can be proven that someone has given the money of Israelites to the Goyim, a way must be found after prudent consideration to wipe him off the face of the earth."
9. Choschen Hamm 266,1: "A Jew may keep anything he finds which belongs to the Akum (Gentile). For he who returns lost property (to Gentiles) sins against the Law by increasing the power of the transgressors of the Law. It is praiseworthy, however, to return lost property if it is done to honor the name of God, namely, if by so doing, Christians will praise the Jews and look upon them as honorable people."
10. Szaaloth-Utszabot, The Book of Jore Dia 17: "A Jew should and must make a false oath when the Goyim asks if our books contain anything against them."
11. Baba Necia 114, 6: "The Jews are human beings, but the nations of the world are not human beings but beasts."
12. Simeon Haddarsen, fol. 56-D: "When the Messiah comes every Jew will have 2800 slaves."
13. Nidrasch Talpioth, p. 225-L: "Jehovah created the non-Jew in human form so that the Jew would not have to be served by beasts. The non-Jew is consequently an animal in human form, and condemned to serve the Jew day and night."
14. Aboda Sarah 37a: "A Gentile girl who is three years old can be violated."
15. Gad. Shas. 2:2: "A Jew may violate but not marry a non-Jewish girl."
16. Tosefta. Aboda Zara B, 5: "If a goy kills a goy or a Jew, he is responsible; but if a Jew kills a goy, he is NOT responsible."
17. Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamiszpat 388: "It is permitted to kill a Jewish denunciator everywhere. It is permitted to kill him even before he denounces."
18. Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamiszpat 348: "All property of other nations belongs to the Jewish nation, which, consequently, is entitled to seize upon it without any scruples."
19. Tosefta, Abda Zara VIII, 5: "How to interpret the word 'robbery.' A goy is forbidden to steal, rob, or take women slaves, etc., from a goy or from a Jew. But a Jew is NOT forbidden to do all this to a goy."
20. Seph. Jp., 92, 1: "God has given the Jews power over the possessions and blood of all nations."
21. Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamiszpat 156: "When a Jew has a Gentile in his clutches, another Jew may go to the same Gentile, lend him money and in turn deceive him, so that the Gentile shall be ruined. For the property of a Gentile, according to ou
It's not in the public's interest for a major media company to merge with the company that owns the cable. That's building a vertical monopoly.
Because the NYT alleges that Trump might use his power to influence approval of a merger, you accuse him of "open abuse" of presidential powers? He hasn't done anything yet. And if he opposes the merger, it's likely for the same reasons Democrats would oppose such mergers, namely too much media concentration.
Furthermore, even if he were to try to penalize CNN, it would be the kind of action Clinton heartily approved of, namely executive power to ensure what the executive branch considered "truth", she just wanted to be the one at the levers of power.
I'm confused. What does CNN have against Angela Merkel?
Obama whined and complained for 8 years about the only channel that was in any way critical of him, Fox News. In a normal world, the other news outlets should have been insulted to be considered Democrat lapdogs, but nearly every network was run by people with relatives working in the Obama administration. Obama classed a fox journalist as having connections to terrorism and spied on him and his relatives (there was no substance to the claim and atty gen Holder lied to congress about the whole mess, contributing to his being the first atty gen ever to be ruled in contempt of congress). Obama froze Fox out of a number of pressers (uhntil the rest of the press corps got worried about the precedent he was setting) and so on. During that 8 years, Fox surely had on people like Hannity who were 100% anti-Obama, but they also had on neutral and pro-Obama voices and when analyzed by independent media analysts Fox was found to have been only about 60% hostile to Obama in its stories.
Contrast this with CNN and Trump. CNN has been found (by an MIT affilliate if I recall properly) to be over 90% negative on Trump. They have repeatedly run blatantly false stories backed-up by anonymous sources (which might well be just between the ears of the "reporters" for all anybody else knows) - reports about meetings that never happened, documents that did not exist, etc.
Obama only had ONE network asking tough questions of him; all the other networks and most of the nation's newspapers were on his side. Trump has only ONE network on his side (about 60% of the time, the news folks are not and at least half of the pundits are not) If the news people in America are neutral and unbiased (and thus deserving of special protections as guardians of democracy) then this simply cannot be statistically true - there should be a more even distribution of pro- and con- and nuetral on any politicians. CBS tried to use fake documents and stories to destroy the GW Bush administration, and now NBC and CNN are trying to use fake documents and stories to destroy the Trump administration - that's not the job of a "free press".
When any news outlet, be it Fox or CNN or MSNBC, says something like that about any politician, what do you REALLY know???
what's the actual content? is it valid? Why would you trust it?
Plug in "Joe Biden" or "Hillary Clinton" or anybody else. Why would you pay it ANY attention. How do you know it's not the typical Washington DC crap of some journalist just making stuff up, or some "anonymous" bureucrat making stuff up to make himself seem more connected or important? Even if you believe the reporter actually talked to somebody other than his own sock puppet, how do you know if that "source" is actually honest, informed, etc and not just making crap up to push a personal agenda?
There was a day long ago when much of American Journalism was about WHO, WHAT, WHERE, and WHEN. It was never perfect, but the journalists at least tried to pretend to be objective and tell the public stuff they personally observed and stuff the subjects of the articles actually and provably said and did
Now we have progressive jerks in the media who do not belive in objective truth and boldly twist the truth to suit their agenda - like CNN's Chris Cillizza who squealed OMG's on Twitter like a little girl as he pointed people to a deceptively edited meeting between Trump and the Polish leaders. He told his audience that the Polish first lady snubbed Trump in a handshake... except in the unedited video the Polish first lady clearly is looking at and heading toward Melania and does not see Donald extend his hand. She shakes Melania's hand, then turns and greets Donald and shakes his hand (i.e. a typical formal meet, including greeting the lady first, and NO SNUB AT ALL)
Oddly enough, I read the original article and at no point did they say President Trump HAD actually threatened to kill the merger, instead they were just stirring the pot by suggesting he COULD. The second article allegedly quotes an unidentified WH insider as saying that President Trump liked the idea, but again did NOT say he had made any such threat. ... it would be just as true to say the "President Trump could dispense the contents of Fort Knox to veterans and the elderly." I expected better of ArsTechnica.. Feel free to hate on the President for what he has actually done, but every time you bandwagon one of these claims you help to bolster the 'fake news' arguement.
And no, I voted for the lesser johnson, Gary, not the Donald.
It may be true, of course, but this is just a big nothing burger again
Hmmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
" So here's an idea: everyone who voted for either Hillary or Trump should be fucking shot."
No, that's not an idea... it's the sort asinine rant that pretends to be superior and "above it all" but is actually one of the biggest elements of the problem.
If ANYBODY deserves to be shot for their politics, it's the sort who immediately resort to calling for people they disagree with to be shot.
The toxicity of politics is being driven by ever-growing government being injected into more and more of everybody's lives. As everything becomes entwined in government, it becomes political (because government is political and run by politicians in reaction to political interest groups. When government has power over something, political groups will use it to shove their preferences and beliefs and policies down the throats of their political opponents... and if those on the receiving end do not like it you get hostility and reaction.
If we want a return to calm civility, we have a choice: we either shrink government back to a reasonable size and scope OR we eventually go into Stalin mode and listen to jerks like you and start shooting all the people who object to the iron fist of government. I prefer smaller more-civilized and highly-contained government combined with maximum freedom and liberty for the individual.
You are one terrifyingly historically ignorant pile of hate filled jackholes. You're seriously ok with a president fucking with a merger because he doesn't like the coverage? Fuck every last one of you.
Iw
> except... pretty much everything leaked from unofficial sources inside the white house has turned out to be completely true. ... according to the other stories citing anonymous, unverifiable sources.
> 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.
That's irrational. You should believe things because you have proof, rather than demanding proof before you'll stop believing. A horoscope might be right some of the time, too, but when it's right, it's for the wrong reasons. Otherwise, someone can just point out that anonymous rumors say that you're a creep who does unmentionable things in private. And we're all going to believe that now because you have no way to disprove it. Also, we can dismiss any evidence you do give us because you're a creep. See how that works? Believing things like this just makes people into tools: sad, pathetic, easily-manipulated losers.
> Which is why CNN only reported on the existence of the dossier, they didn't break it.
CNN reported that they had evidence they wouldn't show us. Buzzfeed actually showed us the dossier that CNN wouldn't, allowing people to understand just how unreliable the "evidence" CNN was working from was. Honestly, CNN was less ethical here, because they gave the viewers no opportunity to verify anything and they reported absurd rumors they were unable to verify instead of keeping their mouth shut.
CNN never should have reported on anything but the items they were able to verify from the dossier and never mentioned the rest. Instead they kept telling us how they had secret evidence they weren't going to show us. Then Buzzfeed showed everyone that it was a pile of garbage. It goes right up there with the story that hit Slashdot about the "secret communication with Russian banks" that turned out to be stray DNS queries from a 3rd party marketing server caused by Russian spam (also, who the hell was tapping their DNS...!?)
> Because there's nothing to retract, it hasn't been falsified.
The dossier puts one person in the wrong country because they confused him with someone who had the same name. It's true that some of the items are not falsifiable, because no evidence exists whatsoever, but again, it's not rational to believe things that cannot be falsified.
You might as well tell us that you saw all of this in your crystal ball, it's just as reliable. It's up to you to prove the claims you make. Trying to shift the proof onto others to disprove your claims is not rational. Hearsay is not evidence.
Again, they should not have reported anything they could not independently validate. Hearsay is not news. Any "journalist" who publishes such--about any person whatsoever--is a disgusting creep who deserves public scorn.
> CNN published one legitimately inaccurate story, and fired everyone involved.
CNN's Chris Cuomo, a licensed attorney with an ethical obligation to know better and not to misinform us, falsely told us that Wikileaks was illegal. More credible lawyers quickly told us that was absolute BS.
CNN ended their association with Donna Brazille, but they never identified the person who actually leaked the questions, let alone did they fire them.
By all means, hold all of them to that standard. But demand documented proof of everything, on all sides. No, the person CNN blackmailed was not 15, at least according to their Reddit history. No, Trump's commission did not demand non-public voter roll data, you can read the damned letter on NPR. It's amazing how many lazy scumbag "journalists" couldn't be bothered to link the damned thing, including the article that Slashdot linked to.
It's damned pathetic that supposedly professional "journalists" are so lazy that they're not as good at providing sources as Slashdot comments.
"A source who is familiar with Trumps' thinking". This is news to us all. I bet it is fake news. He doesn't think about anything.
No barriers other than Trump for this deal? The govt shouldn't allow it in principle. AT&T will raise prices, then broadcast fake news about how they had no choice because the economy or the technology or the government, to cover the fact they find it more convenient to sit around with their monopoly than to compete by improving their services.
No court has ever tested it as far as I know, but I've always considered press exempt from antitrust regulations. If I want to overcharge for books, the first amendment should let me do that, antitrust not withstanding.