The weird controversy surrounding CNN and the Time Warner-AT&T deal
Rarely does a company get to buy Batman, Tyrion Lannister, Lebron James and Wolf Blitzer all in one deal.
That's exactly what AT&T is getting in its $85 billion deal with Time Warner. You might think that the Lannister clan and HBO, Batman and DC Comics or even Lebron and TNT would be the focus of the deal.
Nope, it's Wolf and CNN that are the controversial aspect.
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Almost immediately the cable news channel emerged as a contentious piece of the mega-deal announced on Saturday. Anytime a news outlet changes hands there are concerns about what that will mean for the independence of the organization's editorial operations.
The AT&T/Time Warner deal is no different. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, in an attempt to get ahead of the news cycle, released a statement on CNN in an email.
"Ensuring the public that CNN remains independent from an editorial perspective is critical," Stephenson reportedly wrote in an email sent to journalists and media CEOs, including CNN's Brian Stelter.
The reality that Stephenson would need to release a statement about CNN, which analysts believe accounts for about 5% of Time Warner's total revenue, points to what could become an important debate over whether the deal should be approved by federal regulators.
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It's not the first time that CNN has been a sticking point in a possible mega deal. 21st Century Fox made a run at Time Warner in 2014 in a deal that didn't materialize. Fox, which owns Fox News, said that as part of the deal it would sell CNN so as not to own two major cable channels.
At the time, Fox said it thought CNN could bring in $8 billion.
CNN remains one of the premiere media brands in the U.S., as well as one of the few that tends to resonate around the world. Like the rest of cable TV, the company has had its problems with declining ratings but been able to grow its overall revenue. CNN also boasted of 107 million unique visitors to its various digital properties in September, with 2.2 billion minutes of video served to those visitors.
CNN's reputation and brand are also among the best in all of news media. The channel has taken some knocks around the election cycle, particularly due to it its coverage of Donald Trump and its employment of former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
Still, a Pew Research Center report (conducted before the election), showed CNN to be among the most recognized and trusted news outlets, especially among millennials.
That makes CNN an important part of the U.S. news media, a role that Stelter, CNN's media reporter, spoke to over the weekend.
"Owning news is special and sometimes really difficult," Stelter said on Sunday in a segment on his show Reliable Sources.
Stelter then pointed to some of the difficult choices faced by companies that own news outlets, such as legal challenges and increased public scrutiny.
Steler added that he has "no reason to believe" that AT&T would mess with CNN, and that AT&T's CEO has been saying "all the right things so far."
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Those words have done little to ally fears that CNN could end up an even smaller cog in a giant corporation that doesn't tend to prioritize editorial independence and journalism ethics, particularly among those that have spent time covering AT&T.
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Topics AT&T
Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
