Bezos buying CNN? We don’t ‘C’ it

LAST week, Wall Street media bankers were buzzing about CNN, but it had nothing to do with something Chris Cuomo did or said. The talk in banking circles was that Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos — the world’s richest man — wanted to buy CNN from its parent company, AT&T.

AT&T is struggling with debt and an odd cultural fit with the news channel; it’s run by some pretty conservative dudes in Dallas. So the deal made sense. Bezos has the money to buy how many billions CNN would cost, and he has a nascent media empire since he also owns, personally, The Washington Post.

If old media is your hobby, why wouldn’t a collector like Bezos just add to his collection?

When I broke the dealspeculation story, some of the biggest cheers came from my friends at CNN, who can’t stand the stodgy white dudes they have to call boss. That’s particularly true now that the network’s chief, Jeff Zucker, could soon be leaving (his future there, as described by a friend of his, is “50-50”) and CNNis facing cost cutting from the bean counters in Texas, which might mean layoffs.

Sorry to disappoint you, guys. While the deal makes sense on paper, a person close to Bezos tells me he has no interest, at least not yet. Maybe he’s waiting for a new president to approve the purchase, since the current one hates him so much. (Trump refers to him as “Jeff Bozo” for WaPo’s negative coverage of the administration.) Or maybe Bezos wants to add a few more dollars to his estimated net worth of $187 billion before making his move.

Bottom line, CNNers: Those stodgy white dudes in Dallas will be your boss for some time.