One of CBS News’s top on-air talents decided to crumple up the script he was given for a segment and take an opportunity to go on a fiery rant about his own news network’s settlement in a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump. The settlement is for $16 million.
You see, what folks like this in the mainstream media don’t seem to realize is we love watching them blow gaskets over the losses they take. It’s entertaining. For once, justice is served. Those engaging in the creation of propaganda are now being held accountable. It’s truly a beautiful thing.
The cash settlement is in regard to a lawsuit Trump filed concerning last’s year’s “60 Minute” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. It alleges that CBS deceptively edited the interview as a means of damaging the president’s campaign. Shari Redstone, president of Paramount — the parent company of CBS — is reported to have put pressure on the legal team to bring the legal battle to an end.
“CBS Evening News” anchor John Dickerson was not happy about the decision and opted to let the viewing public know his true feelings.
“The Paramount settlement poses a new obstacle,” he said to viewers on Wednesday night.
“Can you hold power to account after paying it millions? Can an audience trust you when it thinks you’ve traded away that trust?” he added in his diatribe. “The audience will decide that.”
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Dickerson, 57, was named co-anchor of the network’s flagship program earlier this year alongside Maurice DuBois. He previously worked at “60 Minutes,” the Sunday evening news show that’s been beset by resignations and fury following President Trump’s lawsuit. The $16 million settlement matches one by ABC News, which Trump sued after anchor George Stephanopoulos falsely accused him of being found criminally liable for rape. Trump was found guilty in a civil suit brought by E. Jean Carroll, a difference he alleged should have been clarified by the former Clinton spokesman.
Complicating matters for Paramount is its impending acquisition by Skydance in a multi-billion-dollar merger that must first be approved by the Federal Communications Commission and Trump appointee Brendan Carr. Redstone was reportedly nervous that the merger would be denied on monopolistic grounds. But all that be damned to Dickerson, who began Wednesday’s program with a hubristic review of his profession.
“Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS News, settled a suit with President Trump today,” Dickerson said at the start of the segment. “Journalists don’t like to report on themselves. Sometimes, that’s false humility. Mostly, it’s a practical limitation. Reporters try to find order in chaos.
“We prefer to explain the cause of a bombing, the intent of a bill, the marvel of a new discovery. Putting chaos in preliminary order helps viewers make sense of their world. They tell us this, at airports, restaurants, at church,” he added.
“The audience brings us their fears, their questions, their good-faith view of things. It reminds us that we are stewards of that concern. It’s a grace to receive another’s trust, but also to have a mission that shapes your work; a mission, that can sound grandiose,” Dickerson pontificated.
And the anchor wasn’t finished.
“We are not all that. Public figures have taught us that misguided mission can do more harm than brute force,” he rambled on. “We pride ourselves on our B.S. detector, so it ought to work on ourselves too. When it doesn’t, the stakes are real, a loss of public trust, the spread of misinformation.”
I hate to inform Mr. Dickerson, but public trust in the mainstream media has been dead and buried for years now. This should have been made clear by the massive victory that President Trump scored against the radical left in the 2024 election. It was a referendum not only on Democratic politicians, but left-wing media as well.
“A visitor to our newsrooms might wonder why we debate a single word for so long, why it takes hours to answer the simple question: What is this story about? Why there’s a cry of frustration when a detail is off by an inch? That is what work looks like when it is deeply felt, when the audience’s concerns become ours, passed by bucket brigade from the subjects of our stories, to correspondents, to producers, to editors, fact checkers and writers,” he said to his audience.
“The obstacles to getting it right are many. The Paramount settlement poses a new obstacle. Can you hold power to account after paying it millions? Can an audience trust you when it thinks you’ve traded away that trust? The audience will decide that. Our job is to show up to honor what we witness on behalf of the people we witness it for. The network’s first heroes ran to rooftops during the bombing of London. Its current ones carry that same instinct,” Dickerson further waxed poetic about the importance of media,” he finally wrapped up.
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