CNN headquarters. AT&T CEO: ‘Last thing we want to do’ is ‘taint’ CNN

AT&T’s blockbuster proposed takeover of Time Warner will likely face steep regulatory review, as POLITICO’s Margaret Harding McGill and Tony Romm reported over the weekend.

There is also a separate question, however: what will the merger mean for Time Warner’s journalism unit, CNN?

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CNN’s Brian Stelter has, through his reporting this past weekend, sought to soothe his colleagues at the company, securing quotes from AT&T and Time Warner’s CEOs essentially promising that CNN will not be affected in any meaningful way.

On CNN Monday morning, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said more or less the same thing.

“I watch how [Time Warner CEO] Jeff [Bewkes] manages this business today and I think it's a model for how we want to manage it in the future,” Stephenson told CNN’s Christine Romans. “And look, I think of a brand like CNN and the key variable of your brand is your independence, and when people watch CNN, are they getting an independent assessment and reporting of the news. The last thing we want to do, as AT&T, is in any way taint that in the slightest bit.”

Stelter, over the weekend, also quoted an executive familiar with the deal as saying that CNN was the ‘”crown jewel” of Time Warner.

That quote can easily be read as deliberate, because there is actually precedent for such a deal: when Comcast acquired NBCUniversal, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said that NBC News was the “crown jewel” of NBC, and pledged that the cable company would not interfere with it in any way.

While the past six years have not always been pleasant for NBC News (see: Williams, Brian; Curry, An; and Bush, Billy), Comcast has not interfered with NBC News, and has let the news organization do its own thing.

Crown jewels can be tricky to manage, however. Their value is in the eye of the beholder, and is less financial than intellectual. CNN is one of the most important journalistic brands in the United States, but good journalism will attract sharper scrutiny of people in power than even the most-watched of TV dramas.

For employees of CNN, the AT&T deal seems destined to not affect their daily routines. It’s a vertical merger, so any cost savings would likely come from technology and vendor savings, not human capital.

However, there is a good chance that AT&T, like Comcast, will be asked to adhere to non-interference with CNN by regulators, with other potential regulatory demands asked of it as well. The details of those demands and conditions are where the biggest impact to CNN may be mapped out.

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