Somewhere, CBS luminaries Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite are weeping.
All journalists should join them. On Tuesday night, Paramount agreed to settle an absurd lawsuit brought by Donald Trump. It will pay $16 million to the extortionist-in-chief’s future presidential library. This settlement isn’t just craven corporate cowardice — it’s a blistering betrayal of CBS News and all media.
It’s hard to keep up with the wars Trump launches daily on institutions. But as you may recall, he initially sued “60 Minutes” in October. He was seeking $10 billion in damages, which he later doubled to $20 billion. Why? The doofus-in-chief claimed the venerable newsmagazine aired a “deceptively edited” interview before the election with Kamala Harris. This “deception” was actually a ho-hum reality of all taped TV interviews: they are edited for time.
Your honour, “60 Minutes” is guilty of swaying the election — the election I won! They edited an interview — just as they did when I was on “60 Minutes.”
A first-year law student could have knocked out this case for Paramount. That’s assuming a judge, after crying laughing, didn’t blurt out, “Case dismissed.”
Suing “60 Minutes” for editing is like suing King Kong for not being part of the Royal Family.
But instead of defending its news division, Paramount caved to the bully-in-chief. Tellingly, it did not issue an apology nor admit to wrongdoing. Why? Because there was none. Instead, skittish execs figured this was the path of least resistance, especially since Paramount is desperately seeking regulatory approval for a merger with Skydance.
Scratch Trump’s back 16 million times and maybe he’ll approve?
Paramount isn’t the first behemoth to make a Faustian bargain with the dumbass-in-chief. Last year, Disney settled a lawsuit Trump filed against ABC News after anchor George Stephanopoulos said on air Trump was liable for rape in the E. Jean Carroll case.
Again, cloaked in the First Amendment while parsing the semantic nuances of New York state law, this was a winnable case. But Disney capitulated and threw ABC News under the Magical School Bus. It gave $15 million to Trump’s presidential library, which will have more funding than Medicaid by 2028.
Welcome to the Trump Library. The man who can’t read has hastily curated gilded display cases of his unconstitutional executive orders and colouring books with unflattering doodles of Sleepy Joe. Stare at old Big Mac boxes and visit the gift store to get $249 cologne or doctored photos emblazoned with wildly inflated approval ratings and crowd sizes.
There will even be a $400-million luxury bribe — I mean, plane — from Qatar the Pentagon is now spending millions more to refurbish so it’s tricked out in time for Trump’s golf trips after he leaves office. Meanwhile, the U.S. just paused critical arms shipments to Ukraine.
Disgusting and repulsive are words not strong enough.
Does the corporate media not get that rolling over and playing dead will never be enough? Trump is not a bear. He is a dragon. He is flapping his tail and fluttering around to breathe intimidation fires on every outlet and journalist that does not blindly cheerlead his MAGA idiocy.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump sues Kent Brockman and Ron Burgundy.
Pssst, corporate media. Capitulating to the grifter-in-chief is a losing strategy. Oh, you can blather on earnings calls about how this settlement was the best option for shareholders. What you are ignoring is that it was also the worst option for journalism and democracy.
If the media doesn’t stand up to Trump, who will?
His own party is a swarm of jellyfish swimming in pack formation to wherever Trump casts a line. The federal judiciary has tried to block Trump’s blatant violation of the law. But then cases get appealed to a Supreme Court that contorts itself into legal pretzels to always find a way to let the Mad King rule with impunity.
If Trump ever stole Samuel Alito’s identity and pilfered his life savings, the justice would ask ChatGPT to dig up an obscure 19th-century tort law and then argue the president has every right to defraud any citizen. Or eat their cats.
In the saner time of Murrow and Cronkite, lawsuits against the free press would have got a sitting president impeached. “60 Minutes” has covered every administration since 1968 without fear or favour. Paramount has just injected enough fear into the news side to drop a rhino.
The parent company should be ashamed of itself. That’s assuming nepo chair Shari Redstone is capable of shame after she staggers out of her cryogenic chamber while demanding “60 Minutes” run a piece this weekend about how Trump deserves to be on Mount Rushmore.
The media must be a bulwark against Trump 2.0 while there’s anything left to protect. Paramount beclowned itself by settling an absurd lawsuit.
You can’t fight the good fight if you’re too scared to climb into the ring.
