The Department of Justice started a lawsuit to prevent the merger of AT&T and Time Warner. That decision was made by the head of the Antitrust Division. It centers on whether or not AT&T would use the Time Warner products like HBO to unfairly compete with rival carriers and internet providers. There's a lot of arcane antitrust issues at play. The government position is a switch from most prior actions in recent years regarding vertical integration mergers, but it is not unheard of.
Cue the violins. The Atlantic has published an article explaining the position of the DOJ is really an attack on freedom of the press by President Trump. You see, Time Warner owns CNN and the President has made clear that he hates that network. Therefore, his whole approach to this mega-merger must be driven by relatively tiny CNN and he must have mixed in to tell the head of the antitrust division what to do. All of this is presented with no evidence that any of it is true, but hey, this is The Atlantic, and President Trump is involved. Therefore, we have to believe the worst possible thing we can about Trump and just gasp in horror. The author even goes on at length about how in Russia (surpise!) journalists are routinely threatened and even assaulted, as if opposition to a merger is the same thing.
The funny thing about the article is that the author clearly doesn't understand how antitrust law works. If CNN were really the target her, the DOJ could have said it would approve the merger so long as CNN were sold to a third party that could rein it in. AT$&T and Time Warner would have gladly dropped the news network to get approval for their deal. If the President really wanted to achieve this, he could have gotten CNN sold to an ally of his who could change the entire ethos of the network. Of course he didn't do that.
Cue the violins. The Atlantic has published an article explaining the position of the DOJ is really an attack on freedom of the press by President Trump. You see, Time Warner owns CNN and the President has made clear that he hates that network. Therefore, his whole approach to this mega-merger must be driven by relatively tiny CNN and he must have mixed in to tell the head of the antitrust division what to do. All of this is presented with no evidence that any of it is true, but hey, this is The Atlantic, and President Trump is involved. Therefore, we have to believe the worst possible thing we can about Trump and just gasp in horror. The author even goes on at length about how in Russia (surpise!) journalists are routinely threatened and even assaulted, as if opposition to a merger is the same thing.
The funny thing about the article is that the author clearly doesn't understand how antitrust law works. If CNN were really the target her, the DOJ could have said it would approve the merger so long as CNN were sold to a third party that could rein it in. AT$&T and Time Warner would have gladly dropped the news network to get approval for their deal. If the President really wanted to achieve this, he could have gotten CNN sold to an ally of his who could change the entire ethos of the network. Of course he didn't do that.
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