CBS News will pay Trump $16 million to stop the lawsuit against '60 Minutes'
The agreement comes after the network's president, Wendy McMahon, was forced to leave her post.
BarcelonaParamount, the group that owns the CBS News network, has reached a $16 million settlement with Donald Trump to avoid going to trial for the lawsuit the US president filed over an interview on the program. 60 minutes Kamala Harris. The company announced Tuesday night that the controversial agreement "does not include an apology or regret."
Trump filed a $20 billion damages lawsuit against 60 minutes for believing that the show edited an interview with Kamala Harris, her opponent in the last election, to make her look good and hide her doubts about the Israeli issue. Despite several legal experts considering the case to be groundless, Paramount's main shareholder, Shari Redstone, has opted to resolve the conflict through a financial settlement. One of the reasons that would have led her to prefer this route over going to trial is that she is currently waiting to obtain federal approval to sell Paramount to Skydance, a Hollywood studio. However, the company denies this assumption. "This lawsuit is completely independent and is not related to either the Skydance transaction or the Federal Communications Commission approval process. We will abide by the legal process to defend our case," they assured.
Beyond the financial compensation included in the agreement, the group has also agreed to allow some oversight of the show's interviews. In this regard, they assure that "in the future, 60 minutes will release transcripts of interviews with U.S. presidential candidates after those interviews have aired and have been subject to any edits or censorship made necessary by legal or national security reasons."
The news of the agreement comes after CBS News President Wendy Mc clashed with Donald Trump. The journalist's departure comes just months after Bill Owens, the executive producer of 60 minutes resigned because he felt he could not freely perform his job due to the lawsuit filed by the President of the United States against the program and the network, something that has now been resolved with the multi-million dollar agreement.
According to the New York Times, on June 28, Paramount executives informed McMahon that they wanted her to resign. In a memo sent to her team, the journalist says it has become clear that the company and she do not agree on the way forward in the current situation of pressure from Trump. The journalist assumed the top responsibility of the news division in August 2023.
In April, Bill Owens, the third executive producer since the birth of 60 minutes, announced his resignation due to a lack of journalistic independence. The executive claimed he could not exercise editorial freedom within a political environment that, according to the former producer, influences decision-making regarding the content that reaches audiences.
Paramount is not the only media group to have reached a financial settlement with Donald Trump, who has been waging a campaign of harassment against the country's media since before taking office. Walt Disney, owner of ABC News, signed an agreement to halt a defamation lawsuit filed by Trump. The network made a $15 million donation to Trump's presidential library and publicly apologized for comments made by journalist George Stephanopoulos, who was inaccurate in claiming that Trump had been convicted of rape.