AT&T CEO Criticizes White House Over Handling of CNN Reporter Jim Acosta

By Greg Bensinger 

AT&T Inc. Chief Executive Randall Stephenson fired back at the White House over its decision to suspend the press credentials of a CNN correspondent, saying officials had ignored established procedures in a way that appeared to violate press-freedom protections.

The Trump administration said it suspended credentials for Jim Acosta, CNN's chief White House correspondent, because he "placed his hands" on a White House intern who was trying to take the microphone from him at a press conference after President Trump indicated he was no longer going to address him. Video of the press conference showed Mr. Acosta keeping hold of the microphone and making incidental contact with the intern briefly.

"If the White House wants to pull someone's press credentials, there is a process," Mr. Stephenson said at The Wall Street Journal's WSJ Tech D.Live conference Monday. "That process must be followed, otherwise what is the criteria for pulling somebody's press credentials?"

"You didn't like the line of questioning? Well, that kind of seems to be violative of our protections of freedom of the press," he said.

Mr. Stephenson, who has headed the telecommunications giant since 2007, has taken on a new role as a media mogul after AT&T completed its roughly $81 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc. in June following a lengthy antitrust fight. Time Warner includes CNN and other media outlets.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted a video of the incident involving Mr. Acosta that appeared to have been edited in a way that makes the reporter's actions look more aggressive, according to an analysis by Storyful, a social-media intelligence firm owned by News Corp, the parent company of the Journal.

"If the president doesn't like his conduct in the press briefing room then there's a process to articulate that he doesn't like it," said Mr. Stephenson. "There has been no process followed."

The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment late Monday.

Separately, Mr. Stephenson called again for clearer standards on net- neutrality rules, saying no company should be allowed to slow the content of another one.

"We don't really have legislative clarity," he said, adding that companies "should not be able to block you from getting to Netflix or whatever you want to get to."

Internet service providers "should not be allowed to throttle somebody else's content," he said, referring to the practice of slowing internet speeds. And he said any device should be allowed to connect to the internet without interference.

"There should be no blocking," said Mr. Stephenson.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 13, 2018 00:31 ET (05:31 GMT)

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