Paramount betrays ‘60 Minutes’ and the rest of us
Parent
company caves to baseless suit by Donald Trump.
July 2, 2025 at 5:06
p.m. EDTToday at 5:06 p.m. EDT
On Nov. 3, a top lawyer for CBS News wrote to a lawyer
representing Donald Trump in a baseless suit against CBS News. “We urge your
client to voluntarily dismiss the complaint for the reasons set out below and,
should he refuse to do so,” wrote the CBS News lawyer, “we reserve the right to
seek sanctions and damages against him.”
Bravo!
On Tuesday night came the news that Paramount had agreed to pay $16 million to settle
the suit, which stemmed from a “60 Minutes” interview with then-vice president
and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The money, which covers the
president’s legal fees and costs, will go to his future presidential library.
What happened between disputation and capitulation? Way too
much, that’s what.
Paramount, the parent company of CBS News and “60 Minutes,”
is working on a merger with Hollywood studio Skydance, a transaction that
requires the approval of the Trump administration’s Federal Communications
Commission. A view had taken root at Paramount that the case could thwart
merger approval, though there were concerns that paying too much would
expose officers to bribery allegations. Sen. Elizabeth Warren
(D-Massachusetts) has already called for an investigation into “whether or not
any anti-bribery laws were broken.”
After “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens in April
announced his resignation, correspondent Scott Pelley said on air, “Our parent
company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger. The Trump administration
must approve it. Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways. None of
our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that
honest journalism requires.”
Honest journalism requires noting that Paramount’s leaders
will never, ever hear the end of this abject decision. Nor should they. Much
has been made in the recent past about attacks on the First Amendment, whether
it’s the administration’s expulsion of the Associated Press from the White
House press pool because it won’t swallow “Gulf of America” (a dispute
that’s tied up in the courts); the targeting of
student protesters for their speech; attacks on lawyers for their past work; or
any number of actions seeking to snuff diversity language from the handbooks of
corporate America.
Yet the First Amendment withers, too, when it’s not called
into action under trying circumstances. That’s the sin of Paramount. Though
lawyers for CBS News cited First Amendment protections in court filings,
Paramount caved prematurely and completely, leaving the impression that our
legal protections may not have been equal to the task. Is it possible to malign
the First Amendment itself?
“Look, companies often settle litigation to avoid the high
and somewhat unpredictable cost of legal defense, the risk of an adverse
judgment that could result in significant financial as well as reputational
damage, and the disruption to business operations that prolonged legal battles
can cause,” said Paramount co-CEO George Cheeks, according to the Hollywood Reporter. “A
settlement offers a negotiated resolution that allows companies to focus on
their core objectives, rather than being mired in uncertainty and distraction.”
Aside from the details above, there are other important
considerations in Trump et al v. CBS Broadcasting Inc. et al.
Trump’s complaint sought relief over a “60 Minutes” interview with Harris by
correspondent Bill Whitaker, in which he asked Harris about the crisis in the
Middle East. Harris gave an extended answer, a longer part of which CBS News
broadcast on “Face the Nation” and a shorter part of which it broadcast on “60
Minutes.” The version on “Face the Nation” was a Harris “word salad,” argues
the complaint, which insists that viewers were “deceived and misled by the
astonishing contrast between the two versions” of Harris’ reply. Instead of
suing CBS News for defamation — a common approach for parties aggrieved by
media reports — Trump sued under a Texas consumer-protection statute and
a federal statute governing false advertising —
and he chose a venue perceived to be favorable to his chances in Amarillo,
Texas.
In published reports, legal eagle after legal eagle has
called the suit frivolous, though they’ve often been too polite. The Washington
Post’s decency standards bar me from properly characterizing its worthlessness.
Context is required to understand just what Paramount
executives have done here.
Three cases:
·
CNN in January settled a
defamation case with Zachary Young, a security contractor who assisted
companies in evacuating their personnel from Afghanistan. The settlement
followed an adverse jury verdict that reflected some sloppy work and hostile
behind-the-scenes communications at CNN.
·
ABC News settled a Trump
defamation claim stemming from a segment in which anchor George Stephanopoulos
articulated a technically inaccurate description of a civil jury finding
against Trump in the E. Jean Carroll case.
·
Fox News famously paid
out $787.5 million to resolve a suit by Dominion Voting Systems. The network’s
airwaves carried commentary implicating the company in a scheme to steal the
2020 election from Trump.
See? You settle when you screw up.
CBS News did not screw up, however. The
settlement doesn’t include an apology, and that’s because there is nothing to
apologize for. Its actions under attack in the Trump suit are the subject of
great reverence from the First Amendment. In the 1974 case Miami Herald
Pub. Co. v. Tornillo, for instance, the Supreme Court considered a spat in
which the Herald had declined to publish pushback by a politician to critical
editorials — in violation of a Florida law requiring newspapers to offer space
for such rebuttals. The high court knocked down the law because of its
intrusion into the “function of editors in choosing what material goes into a
newspaper and in deciding on the size and content of the paper and the
treatment of public issues and officials.”
That very function — the one that happens many times a day
at newspapers, radio stations, TV stations, networks, social media accounts,
newsletters, whatever — is what Paramount failed to stick up for. It doesn’t
deserve the likes of “60 Minutes.”
