CBS -Personaries frightened by reports of settlement interviews with Trump over ’60 minutes’ Harris interview

Cnn
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Journalists, including some at CBS News, express alarm by reporting that CBS mother company Paramount Global is trying to settle a legally questionable trial filed by President Donald Trump last fall.

Trump sued CBS after a “60 minute” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris – Trump’s opponent in the presidential campaign – included an editing that Trump said was unfairly favorable to Harris. Despite the widespread claim of legal experts that CBS’s editorial judgment was protected by the first amendment, New York Times Thursday night reported that a solution was in the works.

It triggered interruption in CBS ‘news room.

“Trump’s trial was a joke, but if we settle, we will be Laughingstock,” said a CBS correspondent on condition of anonymity.

CBS in October called the merit of the suit and said at the time “We will vigorously defend against it.” A spokesman for Paramount refused to comment on Friday. A lawyer for Trump, Edward Paltzik, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but he told The Times that “real accountability for CBS and Paramount will ensure that the president is compensated for the damage done to him.”

The Times noted that “a solution would be an extraordinary admission from a major US media company to a sitting president, especially in a case where there is no evidence that the network got the facts wrong or damaged the applicant’s reputation.”

In fact, a settlement of paramount could look like a payout. Specifically, it looks like a big check to Trump (or his presidential library, which follows in ABC and Meta’s footsteps) in exchange for regulatory approval of Paramount’s pending deal with Skydance Media.

“It’s called a bribe,” Richard Painter, a former ethical house in the White House for President George W. Bush, Commented X..

Is it the cost of doing business in the Trump era? Some business executives seem to believe it. But settling down with Trump would also cost CBS some of its hard -won credibility.

The case came from “60 minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker’s sitting down last October with Harris.

Observers noted that CBS sent two different answers from Harris to a single question as to why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “does not listen” to the United States. The answer that Harris gave in a preview clip differs from the answer she gave on the actual “60 minutes” broadcast.

Trump and his allies claimed that CBS had manipulated the interview to make the vice president look better. As criticism mounted and Trump threatened to sue, CBS said there was nothing dishonest about editing; “The interview was not doctored,” and the news magazine “did not hide any part of the vice president’s answer to the question mentioned,” said CBS News Senior VP for legal affairs Gayle C. Sproul.

Sproul also cited case law that defends editing and news judgments and noted that “editing is a necessity for all TV stations to enable them other reports.”

Trump sued anyway. His lawyers filed a complaint in the US district court in the northern district of Texas and claimed that CBS violated the Texas Commercial Practice Act.

Legal experts contacted by CNN at the time, called the suit “junk” “lovingly undesirable;” and ridiculous on the face. From the alleged injuries ($ 10 billion!) To the decision to give Fox News the Scoop about the suit, it had all the hallmarks of a political PR stunt.

But a few days after the case was filed, the Trump won the election. Suddenly, the case posed a serious threat to the news department’s parent company, Paramount Global, according to a person involved in the case.

That’s because the merger requires blessing from Trump administration, partly because CBS owns local stations licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, known as FCC.

Outside analysts, citing Trump’s transactional nature, predicted that Paramount may have difficulty getting the necessary federal approvals. Brendan Carr, as Trump’s alien to President of FCC, recently revived a pro-Trump group’s complaint about the interview “60 minutes”. Back in November, he said the complaint would probably be included in the agency’s review of the agreement of Paramount-Skydance.

On Friday, CBS confirmed that FCC sent the company a “study letter” that asked the network to hand over the unedited transcription and tape in the Harris interview.

“We are working to comply with this study as we are legally forced to do,” a CBN spokesman told CNN.

As a FCC licensee, CBS is obliged to respond to reasonable requests from the government agency. But these requests are typically about technical conditions such as broadcast transfer signals, not the raw materials in a news program like “60 minutes.”

The notion of Paramount Caving to Trump has given rise to condemnation. After Wall Street Journal Two weeks ago, the settlement interviews reported was an option, late. Bernie Sanders urged CBS to “stand out loud.”

Sanders wrote on x“CBS possibly reaches a legal solution with Trump because he didn’t like how a campaign interview with Kamala was edited. Really? If CBS caves are undermined the belief that we have an independent media protected by the first change. ”

Trump’s story of bullying media companies suggests that a payment of paramount will not stop his preclords.

In the weeks before his inauguration, ABC agreed to donate $ 15 million to Trump’s future presidential library to conduct a defamation case against the network. Earlier this week, Meta accepted a $ 22 million payout over another Trump Case.