Dan Rather denounces Paramount's settlement as "a sell-out to extortion"

"If major news organizations continue to kneel before power and stop trying to hold the powerful accountable, then we all lose," the former CBS News anchor said.

Dan Rather denounces Paramount's settlement as
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Dan Rather is adding himself to the chorus of people who are furious and concerned about Paramount’s decision to settle with Trump for $16 million—a growing ensemble that also counts Elizabeth Warren and pretty much anyone who isn’t on the board of Paramount Global among its ranks. Donald Trump initially sued the broadcaster for an amount that eventually grew to $20 billion last year over a 60 Minutes pre-election interview with Kamala Harris he says was edited in her favor. Variety reports that “most legal experts” agreed the suit was frivolous and would have been thrown out of court, but the company also happened to need White House approval for a merger with Skydance that it’s trying to push through its final stages. 

In the former CBS News anchor’s view, this decision was a “sad day for journalism” and a “sad day for 60 Minutes and CBS News.” In a statement to Variety, Rather continued, “I hope people will read the details of this and understand what it was. It was distortion by the President and a kneeling down and saying, ‘yes, sir,’ by billionaire corporate owners.”

“What really gets me about this is that Paramount didn’t have to settle,” he said. “You settle a lawsuit when you’ve done something wrong. 60 Minutes did nothing wrong. It followed accepted journalistic practices. Lawyers almost unanimously said the case wouldn’t stand up in court.” Heightened internal oversight and pressure around the merger also led to the departure of top producer Bill Owens, who cited a decrease in journalistic independence as a reason for his resignation. Another major executive, Wendy McMahon, soon followed. 

Rather reiterated that his support for his former colleagues who remain at 60 Minutes is “total, absolute. I do really think they fought a good fight on this, and they’ll continue to fight. The people on 60 Minutes and at CBS News didn’t just take it lying down. They did their best to stop it.”

Of the settlement, he said he “was disappointed, but I wasn’t surprised. Big billionaire business people make decisions about money. We could always hope that they will make an exception when it comes to freedom of the press, but it wasn’t to be.” 

“Trump knew if he put the pressure on and threatened and just held that they would fold, because there’s too much money on the table,” he continued. “Trump is now forcing a whole news organization to pay millions of dollars for doing something protected by the Constitution—which is, of course, free and independent reporting. Now, you take today’s sell-out. And that’s what it was: It was a sell-out to extortion by the President. Who can now say where all this ends?”

It doesn’t seem like Rather thinks it will end any time soon. “It has to do with not just journalism, but more importantly, with the country as a whole,” he said. “What kind of country we’re going to have, what kind of country we’re going to be. If major news organizations continue to kneel before power and stop trying to hold the powerful accountable, then we all lose.”

While he said that in his more than six decades as a journalist he’s never seen the profession face challenges like this, he did close with some words of encouragement for anyone down in the trenches. “Journalism has had its trials and tribulations before, and it takes courage to just soldier on,” he said. “Keep trying, keep fighting. It takes guts to do that. And I know the people at CBS News, and particularly those at 60 Minutes, they’ll do their dead level best under these circumstances. But the question is what this development and the message it sends to us. And that’s what I’m trying to concentrate on.”

 
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