AOL-Time Warner Merger: Six Degrees of America Online

But wait. It's not that simple, I'm afraid. CNBC competes directly with CNN/fn, the financial-news cable channel that will be owned by AOL Time Warner. I don't need to spell out the implications of that for you, do I? Well, perhaps I do. Look: this very article you are reading is in a magazine published by a company that owns a cable channel that competes with another cable channel that is half owned by a company (Dow Jones) that also half owns a magazine (SmartMoney) that competes with another magazine (MONEY) owned by the company that publishes this magazine, and half owned by a company (GE) that also half owns a cable channel (MSNBC) that is half owned by the employer of the author of this article, whose CEO (GE's, that is) nevertheless often appears on the cover of the magazine (FORTUNE) that competes with the magazine (SmartMoney) co-owned by the company that also co-owns CNBC with GE.

Here, then, is the guts of the issue. If Jack Welch of GE, whom I've never met, were nonetheless to appear at my door and say, "I hear you're writing about the AOL-Time Warner merger. I hope you'll keep in mind that I'm CEO of the company that co-owns a cable channel and a website with the company that writes your paycheck, and the company you're writing about owns a magazine that published a damned fine picture of me recently," would I have the ethical backbone to say, "Obviously that occurred to me, but I have no intention of letting it influence me in any way"? Or would I take the coward's way out and say, "Yes, but your company co-owns Talk City, an Internet-content site, with Hearst and Starbucks?" (And while he was puzzling over the relevance of that, I could make my escape.)

Now you have the information you need to judge my credibility, and we can turn to my analysis of the AOL-Time Warner merger. Or we could if there were room.