Here's more reason why AT&T should not be allowed to acquire Time Warner. It shows they operate in bad faith, playing hardball to drastically affect the airwaves and the access the American people have to the media.
The LA Times reports
The Justice Department today sued AT&T, alleging that its DirecTV television unit orchestrated an illegal campaign with three other pay-TV companies to block wide carriage of the television channel owned by the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The lawsuit alleges that Direct TV, before AT%T had acquired it, operated as a "ringleader" colluding with AT&T, Cox communications and Charter Communications to put pressure on Time Warner" , to gain bargaining leverage in negotiations with Time Warner Cable, which was struggling to get the pay TV companies to sign up for the channel," the LA Times article reported.
This certainly looks like AT&T used illegal means to force its deal with Time Warner.
Victor Pickard, associate professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book America's Battle for Media Democracy, says, "A T&T's proposed acquisition of Time Warner would create a media behemoth with dangerous concentrations of political and economic power. With one corporation controlling so much production and distribution of news and entertainment media, this vertical integration poses significant potential hazards for millions of consumers and could harm the health of our democratic discourse." He told me, was concerned about the merger's expansion of AT&T's sheer power over the channels of information."
This latest revelation about AT&T should make it clear to every relevant agency-- communications, justice-- that the merger should not take place.
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