CBS staffers revolt over Paramount's 'shameful' Trump settlement, 'betrayal' to the network's journalists
"This settlement is a cowardly capitulation by the corporate leaders of Paramount, and a fundamental betrayal of '60 Minutes' and CBS News," veteran "60 Minutes" producer Rome Hartman told Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital has learned that the sum being paid to Trump could reach north of $30 million, with $16 million being paid upfront for his future presidential library, in addition to another eight-figure allocation set aside for advertisements, public service announcements, or other similar transmissions, in support of conservative causes by the network in the future.
Current Paramount management disputes the additional allocation, and a source familiar with Paramount's current leadership told Fox New Digital only $16 million was sanctioned by the official mediator, and they have no knowledge of any deal Trump made with incoming ownership as Paramount is set to merge with David Ellison's Skydance Media. However, the incoming ownership will be responsible for the additional allocation.
The lawsuit stemmed from the "60 Minutes" interview featuring then-Vice President Kamala Harris that aired in October and alleged CBS News deceptively edited an exchange to aid her candidacy in the 2024 race.
Hartman, who was one of the producers of the "60 Minutes" Harris interview, maintains that his corporate bosses knew the segment that aired "was edited by the book and in accordance with CBS News standards." Hartman insisted any talk of a settlement was at the behest of Paramount's controlling shareholder Shari Redstone in hopes of paving the for the Skydance merger without potential retribution of the Trump-backed FCC, which could halt the deal. Redstone recused herself from settlement negotiations in February.
"They know that this lawsuit is completely baseless. But they settled it in order to preserve Shari Redstone's payday. That is shameful," Hartman told Fox News Digital.
A second CBS News journalist told Fox News Digital, "Nobody is happy," but the entire newsroom anticipated the outcome.
"I think the terms look as good as they could be in this situation with no apology, etc," the CBS journalist said.
As part of the agreement, CBS News did not admit to any wrongdoing nor issue an apology, something Trump's legal team had previously demanded. However, the network did agree to update its editorial standards by mandating the release of full, unedited transcripts of interviews with future presidential candidates.
The settlement was addressed internally by CBS News president and executive editor Tom Cibrowski on Wednesday's 9 a.m. editorial call. He began the meeting by thanking staffers for "blocking out the noise" over the past several months and continuing forward with their work, the journalist familiar with the call told Fox News Digital.
During the call, Cibrowski openly discussed how CBS would cover the settlement with "CBS Evening News" executive producer Guy Campanile, who the staffer said was "clearly annoyed" by the Trump payout.
"I would say almost everyone is upset because it impacts the brand as a whole," the CBS journalist said.
"CBS Evening News" anchor John Dickerson, who previously saluted ousted "60 Minutes" executive producer Bill Owens and CBS News president Wendy McMahon, used Paramount's own words against itself while addressing the settlement on Wednesday.
"In the end, Paramount decided to settle the suit it said is without basis in law and fact, and an affront to the First Amendment," a stern Dickerson told viewers before ending the newscast, citing Paramount's motion to dismiss Trump's lawsuit in March.
However, Dickerson reserved far more pointed commentary for his CBS online streaming program "CBS Evening News Plus" in a lengthy monologue focused on the mission for journalists to get the facts right.
"The obstacles to getting it right are many, but the Paramount settlement poses a new obstacle. Can you hold power to account after paying it millions? Can an audience trust you when it thinks you traded away that trust? The audience will decide that," Dickerson said.
CBS News' senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang took a subtle swipe against her network by sharing a post by Bloomberg correspondent David Gura, who invoked CBS broadcasting legend Walter Cronkite's quote, "Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy."
Andrew Heyward, who previously served as CBS News president from 1996-2005, denounced the settlement, telling NPR, "The decision to settle a case with no legal merit obviously comes squarely from the corporate suite, not from anybody at CBS News. To me, the critical issue is whether '60 Minutes' can hold onto its tradition of fierce editorial integrity under new management."
"I spent seven years as the Chief Investigative Correspondent for CBS News and eight as a contributing correspondent to 60," former CBS journalist Armen Keteyian wrote on X. "This Paramount settlement is the nadir for the network – a breach of the public trust Murrow, Cronkite, Hewitt and thousands of us worked decades to build."
Representatives for Paramount and CBS News did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's requests for comment.
At the center of Trump's legal battle with Paramount was an exchange Harris had with "60 Minutes" correspondent Bill Whitaker, who asked her why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn't "listening" to the Biden administration. Harris was widely mocked for the "word salad" answer that aired in a preview clip of the interview on CBS' "Face the Nation."
However, when the same question aired during a primetime special on the network, Harris had a different, more concise response. Critics at the time accused CBS News of deceitfully editing Harris' "word salad" answer to shield the Democratic nominee from further backlash leading up to Election Day.
The raw transcript and footage released earlier this year by the FCC showed that both sets of Harris' comments came from the same response, but CBS News had aired only the first half of her response in the "Face the Nation" preview clip and aired the second half during the primetime special. CBS News previously refused to release the raw transcript when the controversy first erupted in October.
"With this record settlement, President Donald J. Trump delivers another win for the American people as he, once again, holds the Fake News media accountable for their wrongdoing and deceit. CBS and Paramount Global realized the strength of this historic case and had no choice but to settle. President Trump will always ensure that no one gets away with lying to the American People as he continues on his singular mission to Make America Great Again," a spokesperson for Trump's legal team told Fox News Digital.
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