First it was the $400 million Qatari jet. Now it’s $16 million from Paramount. Donald Trump’s future presidential library sure is raking it in these days.
News broke late last night that Paramount had reached a $16 million settlement with Trump over his claim that its subsidiary, CBS, had “deceptively edited” a 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 election.
This case was laughable on the merits, notes Mark Jacob, a former Chicago Tribune editor who’s now one of the most-read media critics in the country. But, as usual, this was really about money.
The deal paves the way for Paramount’s merger with Skydance Media.
“Yeah, it's essentially extortion,” Mark tells Lincoln Square Executive Editor Susan J. Demas. “Trump has made it clear to Paramount that he's going to hold up their merger unless CBS agreed to settle a completely bogus lawsuit.”
And this isn’t an isolated incident. ABC settled a similar lawsuit with Trump for $15 million. The billionaire owners of the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times — Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong, respectively — killed their papers’ endorsements of Harris last year.
Everywhere you look, the mainstream media is bending the knee to Trump. The media isn’t going to save us from authoritarianism. It’s up to all of us, Mark says, to get involved with groups like Indivisible and go to No Kings protests and stand up for democracy ourselves.
And Mark and all of us at Lincoln Square are dedicated to building up independent media that’s not owned by billionaires and will always speak Truth to Power. Make sure to subscribe to his Substack, Stop the Presses.
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