Kowtowing to the president

In October last year, in the last month before the US election, the CBS news show 60 Minutes aired an interview with Democratic nominee vice-president Kamala Harris. During the interview, Harris was asked by CBS interviewer Bill Whitaker about the Biden administration’s relationship with Israel.  

Harris’ answer — a jumble of empty platitudes and keywords that did little to shed clarity on US-Israel relations and the Gaza conflict, and later described as a “word salad” — was, according to her opponent Donald Trump, edited to avoid embarrassing her to potential voters. Trump’s evidence for this claim was supported in his view by the difference between an edit of the clip that aired on CBS’s other news show Face the Nation and the one aired on 60 Minutes, which he asserted was intended to shield Harris from a potential “backlash”.  

Trump was so angry about the issue that he sued CBS for $10bn in damages, accusing the broadcaster of “election interference” and claiming that its alleged manipulation of the Harris interview was “the biggest scandal in broadcast history”. 

CBS initially looked as if it would protect the integrity of its journalists and its flagship news show, arguing that the difference in edits was motivated by time consideration rather than any attempt to manipulate public opinion. Trump’s lawyers increased his damages claim to $20bn. CBS’s case was supported by legal experts who decried Trump’s suit as frivolous and having no chance of success under constitutional first amendment protections of free speech.

Trump, who became the 47th US president while the case was winding its way through the courts, showed no intention of backing down, with “fake news media” ABC settling a defamation case that Trump brought against it. CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global, began to get nervous, influenced by a  planned merger with Skydance Media that was under review by the Federal Communications Commission and that Trump legally has the power to stop. 

In May this year Paramount offered to settle the suit for $15m — a whimpering knee bend that angered some CBS and 60 Minutes journalists so much that they resigned in disgust. Trump refused the offer unless the amount was increased to $25m. 

Despite angry staff members claiming that CBS’s news division and 60 Minutes were influenced and interfered with by Paramount Global executives, the network continued to air segments that were deeply critical of Trump as his administration embarked on a chaotic tariff war and allowed Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency to take a chainsaw to the federal administration.

The future of the Paramount-Skydance merger remained uncertain until, late on Tuesday, Paramount Global shocked everyone except perhaps its shareholders by announcing that it would settle the suit and write Trump a $16m cheque.

The company was careful to indicate that the settlement did not include “a statement of apology or regret” and that the money would not be paid directly to Trump but instead served as a donation to his presidential library. Democratic legislators, media freedom advocates and non-Fox News employees are furious at the news.

Worryingly, however, the settlement includes a commitment by CBS that “in the future, 60 Minutes will release transcripts of interviews with eligible US presidential candidates after such interviews have aired, subject to redactions as required for legal or national security concerns”.

Trump’s legal team typically crowed at the news, declaring that it represented that the company, “realised the strength of this historic case and had no choice but to settle”. While many see Paramount’s decision as influenced by its corporate priorities and executives at Paramount Global may believe that settling the suit has cleared the way for Federal Communications Commission approval of the Skydance merger, Democratic legislators are doing their best to throw sand on the wheels.

Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren released a statement on Wednesday in which she demanded an investigation into the settlement and argued that it “could be bribery in plain sight”. Warren aims to introduce legislation to “rein in corruption through presidential library donations” and is calling for a Senate investigation “into whether any anti-bribery laws were broken”.

Democratic Federal Communications Commission commissioner Anna Gomez is also appalled by news of the settlement and has called for the Paramount-Skydance merger to be subject to a full vote by the commission. Gomez said on Wednesday: “This moment marks a dangerous precedent for the First Amendment, and it should alarm anyone who values a free and independent press.”

She also warned that “approving this transaction behind closed doors would be a shameful outcome that denies the American people the transparency and accountability they deserve, especially when press freedom is at stake”.

Paramount’s cave-in represents the latest in a worrying trend in US media corporation relations with Trump.

Amazon CEO and Venice shutdown-artist Jeff Bezos recently cracked down on anti-Trump and anti-free-market opinions at the Washington Post, which he owns, while Meta head Mark Zuckerberg has removed fact-checking procedures for Facebook and other platforms in a move that he’s described as a victory for truly free speech but which many see as catnip for racists and conspiracy theorists to run amok.

Elon Musk’s X removed any veneer of objectivity long ago from the platform in favour of unfettered conspiratorial madness. SA-born owner of the LA Times Patrick Soon-Shiong recently introduced AI-tools in the paper’s oped section that are supposedly intended to assist readers in assessing bias and political leaning in opinion pieces.

For its part, Paramount Global has said that the settlement is not unusual, that companies settle lawsuits all the time and that, in the words of co-CEO George Cheeks, “settlement offers a negotiated resolution that allows companies to focus on their core objectives rather than being mired in uncertainty and distraction”.

That may be true but as CNN recently pointed out, “normally, however, the beneficiary of the settlement is not a sitting president”.