from the feckless-cowards dept
As predicted, CBS execs have folded like damp cardboard and determined to pay Donald Trump $16 million in an unimaginable and historic act of cowardice. CBS, looking for FCC regulatory approval for its $8 billion merger with Skydance, wished to settle a very baseless Trump lawsuit falsely alleging that 60 Minutes misleadingly edited an election season interview with Kamala Harris.
Once more, this lawsuit had completely no foundation in fact. CBS executives may have fought the lawsuit and located an infinite provide of public and monetary help. Proficient legal professionals nation extensive would have been blissful to assist with the case professional bono as a way to shut up an authoritarian bully.
As a substitute, CBS possession, eager to go to the exits and switch possession of the corporate to Skydance executives (who look to be even larger Trump ass kissers), folded to a blatant try by our mad king to bully and extort a significant media firm away from doing fundamental journalism.
CBS homeowners like Shari Redstone have successfully put up a large neon signal promoting they don’t care about integrity or journalism, and the general public who nonetheless work at CBS comprehend it.
The settlement comes after months of negotiations between the 2 sides, and had been sped alongside by issues of discovery and a looming shakeup on the CBS/Paramount board of administrators:
“After weeks of negotiations with a mediator, legal professionals for Paramount and Mr. Trump labored via the weekend to succeed in a deal forward of a court docket deadline that may have required each side to start producing inside paperwork for discovery, in response to two folks acquainted with the negotiations. One other deadline loomed: Paramount was planning to make adjustments to its board of administrators this week that might have sophisticated the settlement negotiations.”
It’s value noting that it takes the New York Instances till the fifth paragraph to make it clear Trump’s lawsuit was baseless. Unsurprisingly, Trump’s authorized group tries to border this unconstitutional extortion racket as some form of huge win for the American public:
“A spokesman for Mr. Trump’s authorized group mentioned in an announcement that the settlement was “one other win for the American folks” delivered by the president, who was holding “the pretend information media accountable.”
“CBS and Paramount World realized the energy of this historic case and had no selection however to settle,” the spokesman mentioned.”
The good irony is that CBS executives had already spent years responding to surging U.S. authoritarianism by hiring extra Republicans and shifting their editorial Overton window rightward to please Republicans. It’s a part of a broader (and under no circumstances delicate) U.S. media business effort to appease more and more radical proper wing ideology as a way to defend their monetary pursuits and entry.
The CBS settlement comes regardless of hints from California lawmakers that they’d be investigating any settlement as a possible bribe beneath California legislation. CBS execs initially confirmed some hesitation within the gentle of the inquiries, however in the end possible concluded that any monetary penalties (after years of inquiries and litigation) had been definitely worth the approval for his or her $8 billion megamerger.
Over on Bluesky, Senator Ron Wyden promised he’d maintain CBS executives accountable, and urged state lawmakers to observe via on their bribery inquiries:
It’s vital to view this as an extension of a really profitable, fifty-plus 12 months mission by Republicans to bully U.S. journalism and discredit factual criticism of typically extraordinarily unpopular proper wing ideology (destroying social service applications and rural medical care to fund large tax breaks for wealthy assholes, as a random instance plucked out of a hat):
The parable that U.S. journalism suffers from a systemic “liberal bias” is among the best lies ever foisted upon U.S. public discourse. In actuality, most U.S. journalism is comprised of center-right corporatists primarily reflecting the monetary pursuits of prosperous, white male Conservative possession. That CBS folded on this means wouldn’t be a shock to outstanding and long-deceased media research teachers.
CBS’ reward for this feckless appeasement was completely bogus lawsuits, baseless FCC “investigations,” and getting relentlessly attacked in the correct wing media as some type of leftist rag (when once more, CBS, if something, had spent a lot of the final decade pandering to the U.S. proper). There’s merely no successful with regards to folding to authoritarian bullshit.
The “new CBS” beneath Skydance might be owned by David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison, the correct wing tech billionaire who has backed Trump. It appears very possible they’ll both spin off and discard CBS’ information division, or more and more flip “CBS reporting” into the type of flimsy infotainment and propaganda artifice that’s slowly devouring the lion’s share of what stays of mainstream U.S. journalism.
Simply an immense, historic act of cowardice for a U.S. media business more and more comprised of flimsy artifice. The period of Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow it positive as hell isn’t.
Filed Beneath: bribe, bullying, donald trump, extortion, journalism, media, ron wyden, settlement, shari redstone
Firms: cbs, paramount, skydance
