Former conservative media reporter-turned-far-left lunatic Oliver Darcy wrote Wednesday night in his Status newsletter about the mood inside CBS News following the overnight announcement Tuesday into Wednesday that parent company Paramount had reached a $16 million settlement with President Trump over 60 Minutes’s infamous interview with Vice President Harris.

All told, it read like these pampered millionaires suffered a huge personal loss as though someone died as opposed to getting called out on the carpet as biased liberal hacks. The headline and subhead were written for these Drama Llamas: “‘60’s’ Hardest Hour; The “60 Minutes” team is aghast after Shari Redstone’s payout to Donald Trump—revealing how an autocratic-behaving president can wield the power of the office to make even America’s most iconic news broadcast bleed.”

Darcy painted the scene of Wednesday’s team meeting, lamenting the “emotions” of “the dispirited staff...spilled over”:

I’m told that correspondent Bill Whitaker spoke first and was quite somber, appearing teary-eyed as he spoke about the institution he loves. Lesley Stahl and Sharyn Alfonsi followed, voicing deep frustration and dismay that the company had capitulated to Trump, handing him millions to settle a lawsuit widely regarded across the legal community as absurd.

He insisted, though, that CBS News President Tom Cibrowski and interim show executive producer Tanya Simon “sought to reassure the journalists that they will fight to ensure the program's editorial independence remains intact” and “there had been no interference from corporate in the closing stretch...and, more importantly, that they would do their best to safeguard it going forward.”

Cue the laugh tracks on this one: “The message was clear...the journalism at ‘60 Minutes’ would continue, unbowed—so long as they are at the helm.”

Darcy also brought up that pesky ideological diversity, then adding how much CBS News journalists supposedly now hate their work lives (click “expand”):

In raising the issue, Simon spoke directly to the fear weighing on her team’s minds, particularly after we broke news of Ellison courting Bari Weiss for a position of some kind at the network: "The concern is what happens next," one staffer on the newsmagazine told me. "Is this it? Or [does Skydance] say we are going to bring a new person in and start tinkering around with this show." If that does happen, the staffer added, "The institution could unravel."

That concern isn’t limited to the “60 Minutes” team. Across CBS News, staffers told me in various conversations on Wednesday that they had long accepted that a settlement with Trump was inevitable, given how openly it had been telegraphed. Many expressed relief that it was finally in the rearview mirror, even as they worried about what comes next. One on-air journalist said they had been “resigned to the fact” that the payout would happen, but now found themselves “anxiously looking ahead to the new owners.”

(....)

“A cold wind just blew through every newsroom this morning,” said Bob Corn-Revere, chief counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. “Paramount may have closed this case, but it opened the door to the idea that the government should be the media’s editor-in-chief.”

(....)

It has demoralized staff, bruised the brand of “60 Minutes,” and left many inside CBS News questioning whether the company’s editorial independence can withstand the pressures of a corporate deal and political pressure from the White House.

Showing his open partisanship and that journalism is a sharp object to be wielded against non-liberals, Darcy boasted “[t]he saga may not be over” with the Freedom of the Press Foundation filing a lawsuit against the settlement, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) calling for investigations, and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) demanding criminal charges.

Darcy showed bitterness in his wrap-up:

Trump got what he wanted: a headline-grabbing payout from a legacy media institution, reinforcing his narrative of a dishonest press. A spokesperson for Trump declared that he is holding “the fake news media accountable” and that “CBS and Paramount Global realized the strength of this historic case and had no choice but to settle.” Of course, that's not at all what happened. But it's the narrative being pushed...and Redstone gave him plenty of dollars to fuel the fire[.]