The phrase that  caught our attention in the rebuke issued by a correspondent for “60 Minutes,” Scott Pelley, of his program’s parent company, Paramount, was the reference to Gaza. The occasion for the jeremiad was the resignation of the producer of “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens. Mr. Pelley suggested that Mr. Owens was elbowed out because he ensured that the program’s coverage of Israel’s war in Gaza was “tough and fair.” 

Go ahead, kid me. There are those who disagree with that characterization of the coverage of “60 Minutes” in particular and CBS in general when it comes to Gaza and Israel. One such skeptic appears to be Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone. Mr. Pelley explains, without naming Ms. Redstone, that she “is trying to complete a merger” — a sale to Skydance for billions of dollars— and “the Trump administration must approve it.” 

Mr. Trump has separately sued CBS for $20 billion for damages allegedly suffered from an edited segment “60 Minutes” conducted with Vice President Harris in advance of the presidential election. Ms. Redstone has expressed the desire for the suit to be settled as prelude to the merger winning approval. Mr. Pelley relates that in recent months “Paramount has begun to supervise our content in new ways.” Mr. Owens reckons that he was no longer welcome.

The Times reports that Ms. Redstone is particularly exercised by a segment on Israel that “60 Minutes” ran in January. It was called “Dissent within the State Department over U.S. Role in Israel-Hamas War.” The moderate American Jewish Committee says the treatment of the subject was “shockingly one-sided, lacked factual accuracy, and relied heavily on misguided information.” In other words, neither “tough” nor “fair.” 

Ms. Redstone could have cause for skepticism. This month a “60 Minutes” correspondent, Lesley Stahl, asked former hostage Keith Siegel whether Hamas “starved you or they just didn’t have food?” A CBS anchor, Tony Dokoupil, was reprimanded by a superior for his tough but fair questioning of author Ta-Nehisi Coates over his anti-Israel manifesto. A memorandum issued by CBS in August denied that Israel’s capital, Jerusalem, is in the Jewish state.

Tensions between headquarters and news are nothing new at CBS. The network’s legendary chief, William Paley, in the 1950s ousted newsman Edward Murrow over left-wing bias. The forces driving CBS’s sales — the rise of entertainment conglomerates, the havoc wrought by cord cutting and streaming — are vaster than any particular editorial decision, no matter how egregious. Television news is facing stiff headwinds.

To say that Ms. Redstone could have a point on the slanted coverage offered in the most prestigious corners of her kingdom is not to endorse Mr. Trump’s suit; whatever injury he may have suffered, how serious could it be if he won the election in a romp? We remember, in any event, hearing Ms. Redstone when in 2023 she spoke, alongside Timothy Cardinal Dolan, at a memorial for Britain’s chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks. The cause of Zion was top of her mind.

Ms. Redstone, in inheriting the empire built by her father, demonstrated no shortage of mettle. She is reasonably motivated to push the merger with Skydance across the finish line. That there will be no completed deal without presidential approval does not undermine her concerns about “60 Minutes” and Israel. The program and CBS would have a stronger case if “tough and fair” had been its guiding lights on Gaza and the Jewish state.