Jon Keller, left, and I kicked around some media topics on WBZ-TV back in 2018, when we were both a little less gray.
Old friend Jon Keller was laid off Thursday by WBZ-TV (Channel 4) as part of wide-ranging cuts at Paramount-owned CBS, writes Boston Globe media reporter Aidan Ryan (sub. req). Keller, a political analyst at the station for 20 years, was one of five staff members who lost their jobs, although he was the only on-air journalist.
Earlier this year the station laid off medical reporter Dr. Mallika Marshall, and veteran reporter Beth Germano retired. The departures represent a significant blow to the station given that television news depends on recognizable, trusted journalists.
What would Walter Cronkite say? The legendary CBS News anchorman at the 1976 presidential debate between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. Public domain photo.
Is there a media organization that’s fallen harder or faster in the Age of Trump II than CBS News? You might point to The Washington Post, but Jeff Bezos has thus far left its news coverage alone, contenting himself with taking a wrecking ball to the opinion section.
By contrast, CBS’s corporate overlords earlier this year settled a bogus lawsuit brought by Donald Trump against the network’s premier news program, “60 Minutes,” for $16 million in order to grease the skids for a sale to Skydance Media, headed by the Trump-friendly David Ellison.
And now comes the next act in this tragedy. According to a story first broken by Puck and since confirmed by other news outlets, Ellison is on the verge of acquiring The Free Press, a prominent right-leaning opinion outlet founded by Bari Weiss, the celebrity former New York Times opinion editor. The price tag could be somewhere between $100 million and $200 million. The idea is to bring Weiss inside the CBS tent and give her a major leadership role over CBS News.
What a revolting development. I’m not a regular reader of The Free Press, but its reputation is not so much right-wing as it is anti-anti-Trump. As CNN media reporter Brian Stelter wrote in July, when talk of a Weiss-Ellison alliance was starting to bubble up: “Earlier this year New York magazine described The Free Press as a media organ that ‘both wants to excoriate liberals but not fold fully into the MAGA wing.’”
Perhaps The Free Press’ most notorious piece was a takedown of NPR by one of the network’s former top editors, Uri Berliner. As I wrote at the time, Berliner’s screed was shot through with intellectual dishonesty, as he built his argument that NPR had fallen victim to liberal bias on a scaffolding of mischaracterizations and outright falsehoods. Look at its homepage this morning and you’ll see clickbait such as “How Zohran Mamdani Could Kill New York’s Schools,” “Is There a Dumber Housing Policy Than Rent Control?” and “The Democratic Socialists of America Don’t Know If They Should Condemn Murder.”
Media reporter Oliver Darcy on Wednesday wrote an excoriating takedown of the pending deal and the absurd notion that The Free Press is somehow worth $100 million or more, saying in part:
Ellison appears determined to replicate the John Malone playbook at CNN: nudge the newsroom into a posture more deferential to Trump, launder that shift as “balance,” and hope the MAGA crowd will suddenly reward him. But this formula is already tired and simply doesn’t work. Meddling at CNN, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times has only destabilized those institutions. It chases away the core audience, while failing to win over the right-wing demographic, which has no interest in embracing legacy news brands no matter how many concessions are made. These audiences celebrate the destabilization of news institutions, not because they will ever turn to them for information, but because they despise them and want to see them burn to ash.
CBS News was never quite the “Tiffany network” of legend. Edward R. Murrow was gradually sidelined during the years after he publicly called out Red Scare-monger Joseph McCarthy. Dan Rather, still going strong at 93, was eased out as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” and producer Mary Mapes was fired after the short-lived “60 Minutes II” aired a report in 2004 about then-President George W. Bush’s sketchy service in the Air National Guard that was, admittedly, based in part on phony documents.
Never, though, has CBS News fallen as far as it has this year. Giving Bari Weiss some sort of oversight role may represent a new low, but I have a feeling that will soon be eclipsed by some other outrage. Walter Cronkite weeps.
Shari Redstone speaking at a Committee to Protect Journalists event. Photo (cc) 2022 by CPJ photos.
Given how long negotiations were dragged out, there was some reason to hope that Paramount Global wouldn’t give in and settle Donald Trump’s bogus lawsuit claiming that “60 Minutes” had deceptively edited an interview with Kamala Harris last October.
In the end, Trump got what he wanted. Paramount, CBS’s parent company, will settle the suit for $16 million. If you’re looking for one tiny reason to be hopeful, the settlement did not come with an apology. In agreeing to pay off Trump, Paramount’s major owner, Shari Redstone, will now presumably find smooth sailing through the regulatory waters in selling her company to Skydance Media. Skydance, in turn, is headed by David Ellison, the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, a friend of Trump’s.
NPR media reporter David Folkenflik has all the details. What’s clear is that this may well be the end of CBS News as a serious news organization. Just the possibility of a settlement has brought about the resignations of top executives as well as criticism from “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley. As recently as Monday, media reporter Oliver Darcy revealed that all seven “60 Minutes” correspondents had sent a message to their corporate overlords demanding that it stand firm. Murrow weeps, etc.
What I want to note, briefly, is that there are still two complications that Paramount and Skyline must contend with before wedded bliss can ensue.
The first is a threat by U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to launch an investigation into whether the payoff amounts to an illegal bribe. Given that every legal and journalistic expert who’s looked at the case believes the editing of the Harris interview was ordinary and unremarkable (among other things, “60 Minutes” edited out a clip of Harris complaining about her hay fever), that investigation might yield some headlines at least.
“Paramount appears to be attempting to appease the Administration in order to secure merger approval,” the three said in a May press release issued by Warren’s office. They added: “If Paramount officials make these concessions in a quid pro quo arrangement to influence President Trump or other Administration officials, they may be breaking the law.”
The second is a threatened shareholder lawsuit by the Freedom of the Press Foundation. In a May statement, the organization’s director of advocacy, Seth Stern, cited the three senators’ possible investigation and said this:
Corporations that own news outlets should not be in the business of settling baseless lawsuits that clearly violate the First Amendment and put other media outlets at risk. A settlement of Trump’s meritless lawsuit may well be a thinly veiled effort to launder bribes through the court system.
In this morning’s newsletter from CNN media reporter Brian Stelter, the foundation is reported to be moving ahead with its plans: “The group’s lawyers are huddling today, I’m told. A spokesperson said ‘Paramount’s spineless decision to settle Trump’s patently unconstitutional lawsuit is an insult to the First Amendment and to the journalists and viewers of “60 Minutes.” It’s a dark day for Paramount and for press freedom.’”
The Paramount settlement follows Disney’s disastrous and unnecessary $15 million settlement of a suit brought by Trump over a minor wording error by ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos in describing the verdict against Trump in the E. Jean Carroll civil case. Stephanopoulos said Trump had been found to have “raped” Carroll, whereas the technical legal term was “sexual abuse.”
Trump’s claim failed on two grounds: What Stephanopoulos said was substantially true, and there was no evidence that the anchor had deliberately or recklessly mischaracterized the outcome of the case. But no matter. Disney settled anyway.
So far, at least, Gannett is holding firm in Trump’s suit against The Des Moines Register and pollster Ann Selzer over a survey that showed Trump trailing Harris in the Buckeye Hawkeye State (which he ended up winning easily) several days before the 2024 election.
Correction: Like the great Boston Brahmin writer Cleveland Amory, I regarded “the West” as anything west of Dedham. So, yes, Iowa is the Hawkeye State. I’m fixing that here and in Tuesday’s item as well.
