A CBS settlement would stab all journalists in the back
60 Minutes followed standard practice
If the corporate owners of CBS News settle Donald Trump’s lawsuit over the Kamala Harris interview on 60 Minutes, it would harm the network’s credibility forever and would open all journalists to meddlesome, harassing lawsuits.
The talented folks at 60 Minutes did nothing wrong in editing the Harris interview. We know that now because CBS News and the Federal Communications Commission have both released transcripts and video of the full interview with Harris.
Releasing the transcript is wrong
First things first: CBS should not have released the full transcript. It is a long-accepted practice that people outside the newsroom should not have access to reporters’ notes or to interview outtakes. Multiple courts have defended the right to keep a reporter’s “work product” confidential.
But when Trump’s new FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who authored part of Project 2025, stuck his nose into the lawsuit by demanding the transcript, CBS News caved. On a mere technicality, it did not surrender the “unpublished” work product because CBS put the full interview on its website. Thus, it was “published”, albeit at the point of a gun from an overly intrusive, Trump-backing federal regulator.
Standard newsroom procedure
Now, to the merits, or lack thereof, of Trump’s lawsuit. 60 Minutes correspondent Bill Whitaker asked Harris about US policy toward Israel and Gaza. She gave a long, rambling answer. CBS used part of that answer Sunday morning on Face the Nation and used a different, shorter, part of the answer later that night on 60 Minutes.
Trump sued for $10 billion dollars in federal court in Texas, claiming CBS doctored the interview to make Harris’ answer look more cogent. On the campaign trail, he said, “they took the answer out in its entirety, threw it away, and they put another answer in.”
The transcript proves that’s not true. CBS used different parts of the same long answer. And they are perfectly within their rights to do so.
It’s standard journalistic practice to edit, shorten, and try to clarify answers from newsmakers. Our goal isn’t to make an interviewee look good or bad. Our job is to communicate clearly to our viewers what the candidate’s views are.
All news interviews run longer than the parts that air or are printed in the newspaper. Every good journalist gathers LOTS of information for a story, interviews LOTS of people at length, and then boils that down to a summary that busy viewers and readers can digest.
We sit there, so you don’t have to
Imagine a reporter covering a local city council meeting which runs three hours long. The reporter sits there, picks out the relevant parts, adds quotes that support the facts and writes a story that is WAY shorter than three hours. That is the job! We sit there for three hours so you don’t have to.
It’s okay to disagree with the judgments that reporter made, and it’s okay to express your disagreement. It is NOT okay to sue for $10 billion dollars. It’s absurd.
Back in my radio news days in the 1970s, Iowa had an Agriculture Secretary named Bob Lounsberry. He was a wonderful man, and a sincere public official, but he couldn’t give a concise interview to save his soul. Every answer ran several minutes. It weaved this way and that. It was almost impossible to edit him down to a useable sound bite because it seemed like he never even paused to take a breath. One newsroom wag dubbed him Secretary Ramblesberry, and the name stuck internally.
If we had run his full, rambling answers to every question, listeners would have dozed off and driven their cars into a tree. Should we have been sued for trying to edit his answers, so our story made more sense? Obviously not. But that’s just what Trump has done.
Corporate owners must stop caving
And now comes word that the corporate owner of CBS News, Paramount, is considering settling Trump’s ridiculous lawsuit to not complicate a big corporate merger it wants the Trump administration to approve. If CBS settles and joins the wall of shame with ABC News and Meta, which have settled lawsuits by Trump – it will set back standard journalism practice in every newsroom in the country and encourage lawsuits from every opportunistic politician in the country.
Look at the two Iowa politicians who have now joined Trump’s lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and pollster Ann Selzer. U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks claims she was harmed by the polling story. Like Trump, perhaps she’s failed to notice she won the election.
And former state Senator Brad Zaun says the poll story affected his race, which he lost, despite the poll not even covering legislative races!
Any good First Amendment lawyer would be able to easily bat these bogus lawsuits away, but if the owners settle – they’re asking for more lawsuits, more legal expense and more journalists who walk away because there’s no point fighting for your rights if your boss stabs you in the back.
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As you point out, the consequences of a settlement are terrifying, as are the consequences of so much of what is coming from this republican administration. Once again, so grateful for you and other ethical journalists who continue to provide a balance perspective. Thank you.
Excellent column. Legacy media are proving the suspicion correct they are ignorantly handing out firearms that will be pointed in their direction.
Kudos to you and every journalist who is choosing Substack for publication.