For the last six months or so, CBS and Paramount have been in a horrible situation because 60 Minutes did journalism. An interview the news magazine conducted with then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris was edited in a way that televised interviews are often edited. President Donald Trump, a guy you could fairly describe as vindictive, sued the company for $20 billion over it. This is particularly inconvenient for business, as the company is trying to close a major deal with Skydance. Multiple top names from the news division have stepped down in recent months, with CBS News President Wendy McMahon more or less admitting with her resignation last week that Paramount’s desire to make the issues with the administration go away has prevented her from doing her job.
Though decidedly a comedy show, The Daily Showis also a program under Paramount that covers news. The whole situation sounds pretty worrying for Jon Stewart, and not just for the grand, bad-for-democracy reasons. When asked during a recent conversation on The Bill Simmons Podcast if he would consider adding a second day to his current one-day-per-week hosting situation, “I’m in a spot where I can do [The Daily Show on] Monday until the company is bought out by people that don’t want anything to do with The Daily Show, and then who the fuck knows what’s gonna happen. I mean, look at what they’re doing now at 60 Minutes and CBS News and everything else.”
“What you’re seeing now is all must pay tribute to the king and the price of peace is different. ABC had to pay $15 million. Bezos had to pay $40 million for a documentary on Melania,” Stewart continued. “The reason why the guy from 60 Minutesand the reason why the head of CBS News left is—it’s not even about the money… Part of the deal is they have to apologize. And in that moment, these people who have built careers on their excellence and their integrity, have to look and go, alright, I hope I’ve done well enough that I can weather this, but there is no fucking way that I am going to apologize for doing my job the way it’s supposed to be done just because this one guy is offended by it.” The host went on to call out the media company’s “awful precedent,” saying that “a policy of appeasement always leads to more conquest.” You can check out Stewart’s full interview below.
