Paramount settlement in the ridiculous lawsuit against CBS News is a shameful bribe paid to Trump's extortion racket, and yet another indict
Jim Acosta at The Jim Acosta Show:
Make no mistake. In its settlement with Trump, Paramount paid a shameful bribe to the president of the United States in order to grease the skids for a media deal that, and there really is no other way to put this, stinks to high heaven. If it sounds like I take some of this personally, I do. I was a correspondent at CBS News in the early 2000’s with assignments ranging from the Iraq War in Baghdad to the 2004 campaign trail with Senator John Kerry to countless hurricane disaster zones, including the trail of destruction left by Katrina. Dan Rather, Bob Schieffer and Scott Pelley were some of the heavyweights at The Tiffany Network who guided me during my “greenhorn” years as a young, wet-behind-the-ears reporter. I will always be grateful for that experience. I’ve always looked up to Rather. To me, he represents the best of a golden age in television journalism and he’s been enormously supportive of my work over the years. Back in January, Dan was kind enough to send me a note after my launch here on Substack. And in 2019, he hosted an event during the rollout of my book on the Trump presidency. I can only imagine the outrage Rather, Schieffer, and Pelley must feel in the aftermath of the settlement authorized by Paramount’s Shari Redstone. Walter Cronkite, who was a hero of mine when I was an even younger aspiring journalist, would undoubtedly be ashamed.
But I am sorry to report this bending of the knee to Trump is the culmination of years of devastating actions by the corporate media industry in its reckless pursuit of putting profits and ratings over the public interest. For decades, the networks, and their corporate overlords have closed bureaus, laid off newsroom staffers and shut down quality news programs, all in the name of maximizing returns for shareholders.
[...] Perhaps it is time to reassess the state of press freedom in America. Under Trump, the case could be made that the U.S. no longer qualifies as a nation boasting a strong, free and independent news media system. With Fox, conservative media, and even brand name news outlets (not just the networks but newspapers like The Washington Post under Jeff Bezos) increasingly under Trump’s thumb, it might be more accurate to describe America as having something that falls between state-controlled media and a free press. We could call it “not fully independent media” or a “free press under duress.” Or worse, “state compromised media.” Whatever you want to call it, this is not how a free press operates. This is why I had, in my own public comments, all but begged Paramount to choose the path of “courage,” as Rather might put it. Paramount and Redstone have weakened a nation in its settlement with Trump, arming the president with more ammunition in his almost decade-long war on the press. The titans in corporate media need to understand something. Trump won’t stop. He will continue his attacks on journalists. Enabling his unconstitutional behavior does damage to our First Amendment and the free press. As we celebrate Independence Day, we should recognize this nation is backsliding when it comes to one of the key pillars of our republic. Walter Cronkite once put it this way: “Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy.” You can’t speak truth to power if those in power can crush the truth.
Jim Acosta calls out his former employer CBS News’s shameful complicity in the Trump Regime’s shakedown schemes… all to appease Shari Redstone’s ego to get a Paramount Global/Skydance merger signed off on.
