By CBS News is facing mounting pressure as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) investigates allegations of deceptive editing in a 60 Minutes interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. This inquiry is tied to an ongoing lawsuit filed by former President Donald Trump, who claims the network manipulated the interview to present Harris in a more favorable light. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has formally requested that CBS provide the unedited footage from the October broadcast, escalating tensions between the network and Trump’s legal team, according to a report by The New York Times.
CBS has confirmed its cooperation with the FCC’s inquiry, while its parent company, Paramount Global, is engaged in preliminary negotiations to settle Trump’s lawsuit. Legal teams for both sides recently asked a Texas judge to extend a key deadline, suggesting ongoing discussions, which have made some in the media worried that their bias might be proven via a settlement, writes CNN.
Journalists, including some at CBS News, are expressing alarm at reports that CBS parent company Paramount Global is trying to settle a legally dubious lawsuit lodged by President Donald Trump last fall.
Trump sued CBS after an October “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris – Trump’s opponent in the presidential campaign – included an edit that Trump said was unfairly favorable to Harris. Despite legal experts’ widespread assertion that CBS’ editorial judgment was protected by the First Amendment, The New York Times Thursday night reported that a settlement was in the works.
“Trump’s lawsuit was a joke, but if we settle, we become the laughingstock,” a CBS correspondent said on condition of anonymity.
CBS in October called the suit meritless and said at the time “we will vigorously defend against it.” A Paramount spokesperson on Friday declined to comment. A lawyer for Trump, Edward Paltzik, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but he told The Times that “real accountability for CBS and Paramount will ensure that the president is compensated for the harm done to him.”
As one of the most respected investigative journalism platforms, 60 Minutes has long been a symbol of rigorous reporting, but during the campaign in 2024, it appeared to lose its credibility.
CBS’s 60 Minutes faced major criticism last October for allegedly editing Vice President Kamala Harris’s few interviews to make her responses appear more coherent. The controversy began when Face the Nation aired a promotional clip of Harris struggling to answer a question about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reluctance to follow U.S. diplomatic efforts. Her response, which was widely mocked as a “word salad,” did not appear in the final 60 Minutes broadcast the following night. Instead, CBS aired a different, more concise answer to the same question, raising concerns that the network selectively edited the interview to present Harris in a more favorable light.
Remember Kamala’s word salad answer about Israel on 60 Minutes? It’s gone.
This is what many Americans will now see. pic.twitter.com/H4w7btDv6x
— MAZE (@mazemoore) October 8, 2024
CBS has refused to explain why the edits were made, fueling accusations of media bias and journalistic manipulation. Critics argue that while interviews are often edited for time, replacing a full response with an entirely different answer misleads viewers. The Trump campaign has called on 60 Minutes to release the full, unedited interview, claiming the American public deserves transparency. This incident intensified debates about the role of major news outlets in shaping political narratives and whether selective editing undermines public trust in journalism.
[Read More: NPR, PBS Being Investigated For Breaking Law]
