Critics bombed Paramount’s global decision to pay $ 16 million to settle President Trump’s lawsuit over the “60 -minute” amendment, describing the move “surrender without praise” that leads to the erosion of our press freedoms.
Paramount late Tuesday He agreed to a prominent settlement With Trump to finish 20 billion dollars wide Against CBS News. Paramount said the president will not be paid directly or indirectly, as part of the deal. Instead, the money will go to cover Trump’s legal fees and help finance his future presidential library.
Paramount leaders hope the settlement It will help Blessed is the sale of the company worth $ 8 billion to David Ellison’s Skydance Media. They wanted to reduce tensions with the president.
But journalists and others on Wednesday said The attacks will pay By Trump and his allies on news. Some called the settlement a stain on the CBS News, a journalist’s house that does not know fear like Edward R. Moro, Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace.
“This is a shameful decision by Paramount,” Cleiton Weimmers, CEO of Journalists Without Borders, said in a statement. “The Board of Directors of the Redstone and Brameont had to stand by CBS journalists and the safety of freedom of the press. Instead, they chose Donald Trump’s reward for his simple legal assault.”
The Trump’s legal team celebrated the settlement, saying: “President Donald J
Bob Corne River, the chief adviser to the Organization for the Defense of the First Non -profit amendment to the rights and individual expression, has existed an opposition point of view, saying that wider repercussions will lead to the leading to lead to broader repercussions.
“The cold winds exploded in every news room,” Corn River said in a statement. “Pyramont may have closed this situation, but it opened the door to the idea that the government should be the editor -in -chief of the media.”
Federal Communications Commissioner Anna M. Gomez, the only democratic On the painting, he said that the settlement was “a desperate step [by Paramount] To satisfy the administration and secure organizational approval on a major treatment currently pending before the Federal Communications Committee. “
Gomez said: “This moment is a dangerous precedent for the first amendment, and it should be a person who appreciates the free and independent press,” Gomez said.
For several months, Paramount executives rupture On how to deal with Trump’s suit worth $ 20 billion. The conflict helped to leave two senior executives at CBS News who tried to stick to their land, especially “60 minutes” The continued broadcast stories that took a difficult look In Trump’s policies and actions.
Journalists felt terrified of the council’s willingness to settle the case instead of defending the freedoms of the first amendment.
News CBS employees fear that the company will be forced to apologize when they said they have not done anything wrong. (The settlement, which was negotiated through a broker, did not require an apology.)
Legal quarrels began in October when CBS broadcast different parts of an answer presented by the then Prime Minister, Kamala Harris, to a question about the influence of the Biden administration with the Israeli Prime Minister.
CBS “Face The Nation” managed a Harris clip while giving a disorganized response to the question. After a day, “60 minutes” broadcast a different part of her answer. This was a strong and brief one.
CBS admitted the release of Harris’s answer.
Trump and conservative colleagues have seized the amendments, claiming that CBS had been manipulated by Harris’s answer to make her look more reliable to enhance her position with the voters. The amendments called for an example of the election intervention.
Trump and conservative colleagues have seized CBS’s edifices to Harris’s answer, describing them as an example of election intervention.
(Kevin Lietsch / Getty Images)
CBS has long denied such allegations.
Paramont Participating CEO George Shakes He said during the company’s shareholders meeting on Wednesday that the settlements are designed for companies to avoid “joining uncertainty and distraction.
“It is often settled by litigation companies to avoid high costs to some extent for legal defense, the risk of negative judgment that may lead to great financial damage or reputation, and disturbance in commercial operations that can be caused by long legal battles,” Josex said.
This logical basis did not do much to calm the critics who claimed that Trump’s complaints were thin.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to a “60 -minute” correspondent Bill Whitaker.
(CBS News)
Seth Steern, director of the Freedom Freedom Corporation, said that Paramount’s settlement “will be remembered that it is one of the most shameful records by the press to a president in history.”
Paramount said that the agreement with Trump included an issue of threatened defamation claims.
But it is not clear that Paramount headache will disappear.
Three members of the American Senate-Elyzabeth Warren (MAS), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Ron Widin want to take A closer look at decision -making in Paramount.
In May, and Senators sent a strong speech to Controlled shareholder, Redstone. They warned that the settlement could be considered as an elected official bribe to win a favorable organizational treatment with regard to the merging of jump.
“This could be a bribe in sight,” Warren said in a statement on Wednesday. “I call for a full investigation into whether any anti -bribery laws have been broken or not.”
“When Democrats regain power, I will initially be in a line calling for federal accusations,” Widen wrote separately in a post on Bluesky on social media. “Meanwhile, the state prosecutors must make the executives of companies who sold our democratic answer in court.”
Some journalists said that they are afraid that the settlement will have a chilling effect, especially among news organizations that lack deep pockets or have non -relevant works related to the federal government.
“The CBS News may overcome the financial strike, but the smaller news rooms that face similar legal threats can be paid to the brink of the abyss,” Tim Richardson, director of the Pen -American Press and misleading program at Pen America said in a statement.
“The danger is clear,” said Richardson.
“The homogeneous politicians and the powerful actors will feel more freely than ever to conduct the law of lawsuits and bring organizational pressure on silence and control over the independent press.”
