AT&T Looking to Sell Disinformation Network CNN in Post-Trump Era; Oligarch Jeff Bezos Reportedly Interested

Richard Moorhead   |  

Nov 16, 2020

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Telecommunications giant AT&T is reportedly looking to sell CNN in the coming months, with concerns about the viability of the channel’s appeal in a potential post-Trump era.

AT&T is the owner of CNN’s parent company Warner Media, and reports have indicated company executives are looking to offload the channel to alleviate AT&T’s $150 billion debt.

“CNN does not have Donald Trump to kick around anymore and their ratings will take a hit,” said Fox Business’s Charlie Gasparino on Friday’s edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight. He predicted that the mainstream media channel had hit its peak by “hating Trump,” and that the business model of the channel would take a hit in that event that Joe Biden is inaugurated as President.

The longtime cable news channel has been beset with disinformation controversies throughout the Trump presidency, having covered a conspiracy theory alleging wide-ranging Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and collusion with the Donald Trump campaign. The company also settled a defamation lawsuit with Covington Catholic student Nicholas Sandmann, who was libeled by the network following an incident in which he was confronted by a Native American demonstrator during the 2019 March for Life in Washington DC.

Investment bankers have told Fox Business that Amazon oligarch Jeff Bezos is a potential purchaser of the company. Bezos, the wealthiest man in the planet, already owns the Washington Post, and would exert a historically unprecedented ownership stake in American news and media in the event he purchased CNN. Republican Senator Josh Hawley who sits on the Senate’s Antitrust Committee, rejected the notion of Bezos purchasing CNN last month as soon as the rumor circulated.

If Bezos were to buy CNN, two of the most prominent mainstream media organizations in the country would become little more than commercial streams for the owner of one of the nation’s most powerful businesses.