Embarrassment Looms for CBS News as Parent Company Hires Mediator To Settle Trump’s ‘60 Minutes’ Lawsuit

President Trump could be one step closer to winning a major concession from CBS News as he and CBS Inc.’s parent company, Paramount, have reportedly agreed upon a mediator to settle his $20 billion lawsuit against “60 Minutes.”A settlement in and of itself would be seen as a major concession by Paramount that CBS News crossed a line in its editing of Vice President Harris’ October interview with “60 Minutes.” A settlement could also give Mr. Trump some scalps, as top CBS News executives could well be forced to resign if a settlement involves an apology. The executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens, has reportedly stated he will not apologize, and he and the CEO of CBS News, Wendy McMahon, have reportedly drawn “a red line” over an admission of remorse or wrongdoing.Sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity told the New York Times that both sides had agreed upon a mediator, which could lead to a settlement in the case, but is not a certainty.The identity of the mediator was not disclosed by the Times. However, Puck’s Matthew Belloni reports that the two sides settled on a retired judge, Daniel Weinstein, who has settled several high-profile media cases. A settlement would amount to a concession that “60 Minutes” violated journalistic ethics when it edited portions of Vice President Harris’s interview in October to remove the beginning of her answer to a question about Israel. Transcripts ultimately released by CBS News showed that Ms. Harris began her answer with what her critics would describe as “word salad.” CBS News producers removed the incoherent beginning to her answer and instead began the answer when she had begun to speak coherently.The network insists that editing the interview for clarity and brevity is completely appropriate and not deceptive. However, the edits were made at a critical time — in the final weeks of the campaign — when Ms. Harris was facing questions about her ability to speak coherently on important matters without scripted remarks and about her avoidance of interviews by serious journalists. While Mr. Trump says the edits could have cost him the 2024 election, executives at CBS News reportedly believe the network should not settle the lawsuit. Yet executives at Paramount, which is being acquired by Skydance, are anxious to get the deal — which needs Trump Administration approval — across the finish line. They reportedly believe a settlement could be the best course of action to ensure the deal goes through. Due to internal concerns — reported by the Wall Street Journal — that a settlement could be seen as a bribe, an apology and admission of wrongdoing could be a necessary part of the settlement. In a February meeting reported by the Times, Mr. Owens told his staff, “There have been reports in the media about a settlement and/or apology. The company knows I will not apologize for anything we have done.”“The edit is perfectly fine; let’s put that to bed so we can get on with our lives,” he said, referring to the release of the transcript, which CBS News was about to finally release — after resisting for months — on the orders of Mr. Trump’s FCC.Meanwhile, the chief executive of CBS News, Wendy McMahon — who’s also under pressure for allegations of anti-Israel bias at CBS News and poor programming decisions related to a botched reimagining of the storied “CBS Evening News” — has reportedly been a vocal opponent of a settlement.The liberal journalist Oliver Darcy reports in his Status newsletter that Mr. Owens and Ms. McMahon have made it clear that an apology is a “red line” for them. Lawyers for CBS have also tried to dismiss the case. However, the Texas-based judge overseeing the lawsuit rejected their request. In recent months, CBS, ABC and CNN have been facing adverse decisions from judges in Florida and Texas — where there’s less sympathy for the press than there is in New York — in lawsuits brought against their news operations.CBS did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.The Harris interview would not be the first time “60 Minutes” – which remains hugely influential and commands a giant audience despite the secular decline of broadcast news – would have been forced to account for ethical lapses. In the middle of the 2004 election, “60 Minutes” aired a report that questioned how President George W. Bush got into the Texas Air National Guard in 1968. The report– coming at a time when Mr. Bush and Secretary Kerry’s military records were under scrutiny – suggested that strings were pulled to help Mr. Bush get into the Guard to avoid being drafted to fight in Vietnam.However, weeks later, CBS News admitted that it could not confirm the authenticity of the documents that purportedly supported the thrust of the allegations against the president. The anchor who reported the story, Dan Rather, apologized for the report, but he did so on “CBS Evening News,” not “60 Minutes,” where the report originally ran. Mr. Rather was eventually removed as the “Evening News” anchor, but not fired, and left the network in disgrace when his contract expired (he sued CBS after being forced out). Meanwhile, the president of CBS News at the time, Andrew Heyward, said in a statement, “Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report.”“We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret,” he said. Months later, three CBS News executives with oversight of the Guard story were forced to resign, and the producer of the story was fired. An independent panel that examined the report said a “myopic zeal” to be first to report the story played a role in the airing of the false segment.In 2013, “60 Minutes” was forced to retract a report by Lara Logan about the 2012 attack on the American compound at Benghazi, which led to the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. In October 2013, “60 Minutes” aired a report that alleged the State Department did not take appropriate security precautions to secure the compound. Additionally, the report criticized the Obama Administration’s response to the attack. Republicans were probing the Benghazi debacle as a way to shine a spotlight on what they considered to be negligent leadership of the State Department by Secretary Clinton, who was plotting a presidential run.However, the report was based on an eyewitness account from a former British soldier, Dylan Davies, that later turned out to be fabricated. Mr. Davies initially claimed to have been at the compound and even to have fought with the attackers. It was later discovered that he was not at the compound until the morning after the attack and that he had given testimony to the FBI that contradicted his public account. His interview with Ms. Logan came at a time when he was promoting his book, “The Embassy House,” which was being published by a subsidiary of CBS Inc. The publication of the book was later canceled.After the report fell apart, Ms. Logan appeared on “CBS This Morning” to apologize. “We were wrong,” she said. “We take the vetting of sources and stories very seriously at ‘60 Minutes,’ and we took it seriously in this case. But we were misled, and we were wrong, and that’s the important thing.”Ms. Logan was ordered to take a leave of absence and quietly left the network in 2018 when her contract ended. The producer of the segment, who was also forced to take a leave of absence, would also leave CBS News.More recently, ABC News agreed in December to pay $15 million to Mr. Trump’s presidential foundation and $1 million for attorney fees to settle the president’s defamation suit after host George Stephanopoulos repeatedly and falsely said Mr. Trump had been “found liable for rape.”In addition to the payment, the network agreed to release a statement that read, “ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding President Donald J. Trump made during an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Rep. Nancy Mace on ABC’s This Week on March 10, 2024.” Mr. Stephanopoulos was not compelled to apologize on air.Mr. Stephanopoulos was not forced out, but the New York Post reports he is “miserable” after the apology.

Embarrassment Looms for CBS News as Parent Company Hires Mediator To Settle Trump’s ‘60 Minutes’ Lawsuit

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