ATLANTA—In response to a U.S. district court judge overturning a Justice Department ruling that had previously blocked an $85 billion merger between telecom giant AT&T and its parent company, Time Warner, CNN reportedly promised Tuesday that the consolidation would have no effect on its ability to maintain a complete lack of editorial integrity. “We want to reassure our viewers that no matter what happens on the business side of things, we are committed to providing the same level of absolutely uninformed and unintelligent commentary that they’ve come to expect from us,” said CNN president Jeff Zucker, adding that he’d been in contact with executives at AT&T and received their assurance that they would not attempt to interfere with CNN’s misguided, histrionic coverage. “Our frequent failure to meet even the most basic of journalistic principles and mission to downplay important facts in favor of shock value and hysterics is what people have come to expect from us, and we won’t let you down. If anything, the merger should provide even more opportunities to secure ethically compromised interviewees and expand our spurious, tone-deaf coverage to new platforms.” Zucker also stated that he was hoping to leverage the multibillion-dollar merger into big raises for CNN’s vapid, inept on-air talent.

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