The Justice Department has told AT&T Inc. that the company needs to sell CNN, Time Warner’s cable news network, in order for its proposed $84.5 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc. to be approved, according to a report in the Financial Times, which cited people with knowledge of the negotiations. Shares of Time Warner were down more than 5% on Wednesday. According to the report, selling CNN is just one of the demands being made, but the deal’s approval relies on that. CNN has been the target of much of President Donald Trump’s “fake news” bashing in the first year of his term. According to the FT, AT&T is not really interested in selling the news network, and the company is prepared to take the Trump administration to court. Shares of Time Warner have declined more than 7% in the year to date, and AT&T shares are down nearly 22%. By comparison, the S&P 500 index is up close to 16% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up more than 19%.
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