Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, is considering buying American news network CNN, Fox Business reported. Before this, in 2013, Bezos bought Washington Post for $250 million.
Sources told Fox Business, AT&T could be looking to sell CNN as its $85 billion acquisition of TimeWarner in 2016 left the group with considerable debt.
According to Rich Greenfield, a technology analyst, “It’s not shocking to see this corporation want less exposure to the news (division) but I’m a little surprised CNN would be the only asset to be sold given they have a much stronger digital platform than the rest of Turner’s properties.”
US Senator Josh Hawley, who sits on the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights group, tweeted, “One word to this: No.” as his response to the story.
While announcing its sale to Bezos, Washington Post, on August 5, 2013 had said, “Seattle-based Amazon will have no role in the purchase; Bezos himself will buy the news organization and become its sole owner when the sale is completed, probably within 60 days. The Post Co. will get a new, still undecided name and continue as a publicly traded company without the newspaper.”
Bezos, post the acquisition, called The Washington nPost “an important institution” and expressed optimism about its future.
“The key thing I hope people will take away from this is that the values of The Post do not need changing. The duty of the paper is to the readers, not the owners,” he had said.
