Paramount’s $16 Million Surrender Sets Dangerous Press Freedom Precedent

​In a move that is drawing widespread condemnation and ignited a press freedom firestorm, Paramount has agreed to pay $16 million to settle President Trump’s lawsuit over CBS’s editing of a “60 Minutes” segment. The settlement, which includes legal fees and a donation to Trump’s future presidential library, appears less like a legal resolution and more like a political payoff designed to grease the wheels of a corporate merger.
 
Seth Stern of The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), slammed the settlement as “a thinly veiled effort to launder bribes through the court system.” FPF is preparing a shareholder derivative lawsuit against Paramount’s leadership for what it sees as a betrayal of journalistic integrity and a violation of fiduciary duty.
 
Let's be clear: This lawsuit, based on a Texas statute “outlawing false, misleading, or deceptive acts or practices” in business is beyond a legal stretch. CBS aired edited clips from an interview with Vice President Harris – standard practice in broadcast journalism – with no evidence of factual inaccuracies.
 
The lawsuit claims that CBS hid the former vice president’s propensity for answering questions with nonsensical “word salad” answers – a breathtaking assertion of legal control over editorial decisions that are clearly subjective. If this standard were widely adopted, all manner of news and editorial content would become subject to adjudication.
 
The settlement only makes sense when you look at the bigger picture. Shari Redstone, who chairs Paramount, stands to gain if the company’s merger with Skydance Media goes through. Trump’s lawsuit, and his Federal Communication Commissioner’s opening of a “news distortion complaint” of CBS, created the leverage. Paying $16 million to settle this lawsuit starts to look less like a legal decision and more like a calculated move to secure the deal.
 
Seth Stern’s warning is especially apt: “Corporations that own news outlets should not be in the business of settling baseless lawsuits that clearly violate the First Amendment.” As Stern notes, this doesn’t just damage CBS’s credibility, it makes every newsroom in America more vulnerable to future intimidation.
 
To be sure, CBS has its journalistic flaws. Since the days of Dan Rather, some of CBS’s reporting has been comically biased against Republicans. But editorial bias is not, and must never be, a matter for governmental scrutiny or political reprisal. The First Amendment is not a quality control mechanism for press content. It is an absolute – “Congress shall make no law” abridging freedom of the press. It is a firewall between the state and the newsroom.
 
Conservatives should be especially wary of this precedent. If a sitting president can sue a media company over edits backed by the implied threat of merger obstruction, what stops officials in the next administration from doing the same to Fox News? Or your favorite influencer who gets under their skin?
 
This case should alarm anyone who values an independent press, even if they disagree with the views generated by such independence. When an administration uses the threat of regulatory power to extract money and editorial concessions from a news organization, it’s not just CBS on trial. If this strategy proves successful, every newsroom becomes a target, and every critical story a liability. And that’s flatly incompatible with the First Amendment.

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