The mainstream media is making a big stink over Paramount's decision to pay President Trump's presidential library $16 million for selectively editing an interview with failed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in order to make her look more intelligent than she was.
According to the New York Times:
Paramount said late Tuesday that it has agreed to pay President Trump $16 million to settle his lawsuit over the editing of an interview on the CBS News program “60 Minutes,” an extraordinary concession to a sitting president by a major media organization.
Paramount said its payment includes Mr. Trump’s legal fees and costs and that the money, minus the legal fees, will be paid to Mr. Trump’s future presidential library.
As part of the settlement, Paramount said that it had agreed to release written transcripts of future “60 Minutes” interviews with presidential candidates. The company said that the settlement did not include an apology.
The deal is the clearest sign yet that Mr. Trump’s ability to intimidate major American institutions extends to the media industry.
Oh, chilling. Intimidate?
While the prospect of a politician successfully suing over an editing decision could be a slippery slope in some distant scenario, what the Times ignores is the extent to which 60 Minutes did edit that interview -- as if it were a public relations agency and then passed it off as objective news in order to influence an election.
This happened because 60 minutes refused to release an unedited transcript.
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) July 2, 2025
Now ask why. https://t.co/7XcQEo5sWm
We have been down this road before -- seeing the media act like a cartel in its suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2016 election, an act of bias that probably did influence the election, given the number of people who told pollsters they would have voted differently had they known about it.
We have also seen the media act as a cartel in its coverup of Joe Biden's mental deterioration, chirpily claiming in toto that Biden was as sharp as a tack when every last one of them knew he was a basket case.
Complaints are only worth listening to if the press would at least try to act responsibly and fairly, and not as a political spin control arm of the Democrat party.
It wasn't just a little incremental bias in this case. It was full frontal manipulation of the news to make it read the opposite of what it was and that is unacceptable in an agency holding a privileged license to broadcast on the limited public airwaves. Should they really have the power and consent of the taxpaying public to alter reality?
Rasmussen points out the extent of the problem:
Good Morning !
— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) July 2, 2025
CBS avoided a bunker buster license forfeiture @FCC action.
News distortion (marked page center) is "a most heinous act against the public interest."
They did it when they reconstructed a Harris word-salad interview answer to her sole political benefit. https://t.co/3RzwYssmoo pic.twitter.com/Jowwyy0HGb
But we are still seeing laments like these:
Tragic. Heartbreaking. What a major disappointment. Wow. https://t.co/AYqP91gWfk
— Maria Shriver (@mariashriver) July 2, 2025
They have no one to blame but themselves. Edit at the margins and this wouldn't happen. Edit to make the news the opposite of what it is and there's an integrity problem.
The other thing is -- didn't Shriver used to work in the news? Shouldn't she be more upset about what CBS did? Or are there no standards at all now?
Doctors get upset when other doctors besmirch the medical profession and its standards. I've seen that more than once.
Journalists? Not so much. A case against a bad journalist is not a disgrace to them, it's a clarion call to circle the wagons now.
It explains why that profession, particularly in television has fallen so far it's now indistinguishable from a public relations agency. The public has noticed.
Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License