Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

BACKGROUND (CNN): Paramount settles Trump’s ‘60 Minutes’ lawsuit with $16 million payout and no apology
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AFTER PARTY (with Emily Jashinsky, Mark Halperin)
https://youtu.be/BU2u5HuoQbY

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Emily Jashinsky: I'm really curious to get your take on the CBS settlement [...] because you were inside the big network media world for a long time.

Mark Halperin: [...] So in this case I can say, without fear of contradiction, that the reason they did what they did was not as the lawsuit charges -- i.e., to help Kamala Harris. They did it because that's the way they make the sausage. They want the thing to be linear. They want it to be compact and good storytelling.

Now, again, I'll say CBS News, like everybody else in the legacy media, did lots of things to hurt Donald Trump and help Kamala Harris during this campaign. This was not one of them.

But because they are so unable to defend their normal shoddy practices that do represent bias, they had to pay the money because -- and this is the dirtiest little secret of all -- they didn't want to go through discovery.

Because if the Trump lawyers got a hold of all the communications done by CBS and "60 Minutes" during this process, then there would be trouble for CBS.

[...] Part of the settlement was they want the merger to go through. Part of the settlement is they don't want discovery. I'm sure. And part of it is, again, as deluded and in denial as they are about their actual transgressions, they know that they don't have a leg to stand on because they have been biased in so many other cases.

I'll say again, ironically, this was not one of them.

[...] Ironically, this was not a professional failure. This is business as usual. [...] People might find it unfortunate, but the New York Times does it. The Free Beacon does it. You do an interview and you run parts of the interview that aren't necessarily lined up with the exact question. I can understand why civilians, regular non-pros, would find that offensive, but it's what happens.

[...] It'd be like a bunch of doctors killing a bunch of their patients through professional negligence.

And then people say, "Well, you know, doctor, can you help me with something?"

And doctor's like, "Well, I can't help you because I'm professionally negligent, but I won't admit it. So, I'm just going to give you money to make it go away."

[...] If every news magazine producer who selectively and misleadingly edited an interview had to pay $15 million to the Donald Trump presidential library, it would look like the Taj Mahal or the Kremlin, because they all do it.

[...] Paramont and the leadership there wanted to make this go away. So, they were willing to pay any price, not bear any burden, but pay any price to make it go away.

Emily Jashinsky: Right, they want their merger to go through, and they want to have a good working relationship with the Trump administration...

The Dirty Secret ... https://youtu.be/BU2u5HuoQbY

I was so pissed when I heard about this, particularly when the transcript showed no deceptive editing as Trump claimed. This explanation makes sense, and my view of CBS/Paramount sinks even further.

You're a moron if you didn't see the obvious deceptive editing. They literally took one question and edited in Kamala's answer to remove her word salad. The transcript was only released after online pressure, because people saw the actual answer in promos but the edited answer in the aired interview. They basically ratted on themselves.

"because they are so unable to defend their normal shoddy practices that do represent bias" literally means their deceptive editing due to bias. This was not journalism.

Also, read up on Mark Halperin.

"A Feb. 5 "60 minutes" statement said the broadcast was "not doctored or deceitful" but "journalists regularly edit interviews — for time, space or clarity."

The nearly hourlong unedited video was shortened to 20 minutes for the Oct. 7 broadcast.

We rate the claim a "60 minutes" clip shows Kamala Harris lying while cameras roll and being pressed for the truth while they’re on False."

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/20...nutes-doe/

This lawsuit never claimed Kamala was lying. Way to fact check a red herring.

"The transcript of the interview showed that Ms. Harris gave a lengthy answer to a question about Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister. About 21 seconds of that answer aired in a preview of the interview on “Face the Nation,” another CBS News show. A different seven-second part of the answer aired the next day in a prime-time episode of “60 Minutes.”

Mr. Trump said in his lawsuit that CBS’s actions amounted to “news distortion” that was aimed at tipping the scales in favor of the Democratic Party. Paramount disputed that characterization."--- https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/busin...wsuit.html

It certainly painted Kamala as much more succinct and less full of her usual moron word salad. Maybe you can't tell the difference, but for those who could, it could sway their vote.
Of course Paramount is going to dispute it.