Staffers at “60 Minutes” urged one another to keep the venerable CBS newsmagazine going even as corporate parent Paramount Global investigates the possibility of settling what is seen as a flimsy defamation lawsuit tied to a report that ran on the show.
Speaking during a meeting held Monday, both correspondents Scott Pelley and Anderson Cooper cautioned an assemblage of employees who work for the Sunday-night mainstay against letting the lawsuit tear the show apart and distract people from the journalism is presents each week, according to a person familiar with the matter.
CBS News declined to make executives available for comment.
Employees at the Paramount Global unit have grown increasingly wary of Paramount’s willingness to consider settling the matter, according to people familiar with conversations taking place, seeing such efforts as a move to keep the looming acquisition of the company by Skydance Media on track, rather than supporting honest newsgathering. Filed in federal court in the Northern District of Texas in November, the suit alleges “60 Minutes” tried to mislead voters by airing two different edits of remarks made in an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, then Trump’s rival for the White House. CBS sought to have the case thrown out in a subsequent filing.
Pressure on the show has only intensified since that time. CBS News at 4:55 p.m. on Monday provided the Federal Communications Commission with an unedited transcript of the Harris interview, complying with a letter of inquiry from the regulatory body. Already, one of the Democratic commissioners at the FCC, Anna Gomez, released a statement calling the inquiry part of a concerning pattern of implementing the will of the Administration on issues that go far beyond our core responsibilities. These actions disregard long-standing norms and ignore the mandate granted by Congress to the FCC to act as an independent agency.”
Nearly all of the current team of “60 Minutes” correspondents attended the meeting, according to the person familiar with the situation, with some flying in to participate, as a show of solidarity. In addition to Pelley and Cooper, Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, Sharyn Alfonsi and Jon Wertheim were also present, with Cecelia Vega calling in via phone.
Bill Owens, only the third executive producer of the show over the course of its 57 seasons, told staffers that though discussion around the suit had intensified in recent days, he has been dealing with it for weeks. Both he and Wendy McMahon, the CBS executive who oversees CBS News and local CBS stations, have told Paramount executives that settling the suit would represent an unsettling decision. Owens told the assemblage Monday that he would not offer any apology for the reporting that had come under question.
The suit appears to use different edits of the Harris interview, one shown during a short promo on CBS’ “Face The Nation” and one that aired on the newsmagazine itself, to accuse CBS News of deceptive practices. Legal experts, however, believe the suit has little actual legal merit.
The decision regarding the suit appears to hinge on the thinking of Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Paramount Global who is eager to see the Skydance deal consummated. In recent months, Redstone has begun to weigh in on various controversies at CBS News much more frequently than her father, Sumner Redstone, ever had, according to one CBS veteran.
In October, Redstone objected publicly after CBS News executives took issue with an exchange on “CBS Mornings” between co-anchor Tony Dokoupil and author Ta-Nehisi Coates during which Dokoupil grilled Coates on whether his writing expressed antipathy toward Israel. “I think we made a mistake,” said Redstone, while speaking at an event in New York City that was part of Advertising Week, an industry conference. “I think we made a bad mistake this week.”
A growing number of media organizations have tried to placate President Trump in recent weeks. Disney’s commitment to ABC News came under scrutiny after the company agreed to pay a settlement of $15 million to Donald Trump’s presidential library after anchor George Stephanopoulos asserted incorrectly in March said on air that Trump had been found liable in a court case for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump had been found liable by a jury for sexual abuse. Even so, legal experts felt ABC News had a strong chance of prevailing. Amazon has agreed to produce a documentary of First Lady Melania Trump.
