Jon Stewart started a fake Kickstarter campaign this week to buy CNN for $10 billion in reaction to media magnate Rupert Murdoch's recent bid to buy Time Warner.
Time Warner ultimately passed on Murdoch's offer, but if News Corp were to at some point acquire Time Warner and all of its assets, it would likely have to sell CNN to avoid anti-trust issues,
noted one Washington Post blogger. This was widely speculated when news of the offer broke last week, with many saying CNN would have to be spun off because it competes with Murdoch's Fox News channel.
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CNN was estimated to be worth about $10 billion, so Stewart jokingly called on his "Daily Show" audience Tuesday to contribute to his Kickstarter — which was actually hosted at LetsBuyCNN.com — in order to raise money to buy it.
"That’s a lot of money for anyone. But not a lot of money for everyone. Which is why tonight we are starting our Kickstarter campaign to buy CNN," he said at the top of the segment.
Real Kickstarter campaigns often offer rewards for contributing at higher levels, so Stewart imagined what sort of perks the cable news giant might be able to offer backers once it was safely in the hands of Stewart.
Among the rewards were the chance to take the drug molly with Fareed Zakaria for $25,000.
Stewart has come under fire in recent weeks for what some have perceived as an anti-Israel sentiment.
Slate reported that his parody news segments regarding Israel's latest scuffle with Hamas have more recently acted as "a sort of walk-back" of pervious language that would make it appear he was sympathetic to Hamas.
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