Paramount ready to resolve Trump’s demand of $ 20 million against CBS News

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Paramount is ready to reach an agreement to resolve Donald Trump $ 20 million demand against CBS News, after the owner of the study, Shari Redstone, became “concerned” about the program balance in recent months.

Emphasized was willing to set Trump’s demand, which claims the CBS flagship 60 minutes The news program spread him by misleading an interview with his political opponent Kamala Harris last year, he said two people who are known by the matter.

The Paramount Council prepared the financial terms for a possible agreement at a meeting of April 18, according to the people. The possible agreement could be in tens of millions of dollars, one of the people said. Lawyers on both sides began mediation on Wednesday.

CBS lawyers have said that Trump’s demand is found to be foundable and that some of his own journalists have decreed the potential agreement as capitulation in the White House by one of the most well -known news groups in the country.

The opening to a settlement occurs after Redstone, the billionaire controlling Paramount, frustrated with the tone of some of CBS coverage in recent months, said a person who knew his thinking.

“She has been worried for some time on the balance of CBS news,” the person said. Redstone, who participated in organizations fighting anti-Semitism after Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023 in Israel, was questioned by the CBS coverage of the Israel-Hamas War last year. Raised his criticism to lecture In October.

Although Redstone has been recused from the deliberations of the Board of Paramount on the liquidation, he has favored an agreement. “We cannot be ready, we have to move forward,” Redstone told the Council, said a person who knew this.

Redstone and his family are also online to receive a $ 1 billion payment if the Trump administration approves the merger of Paramount with Hollywood Studio Skydance. The President’s regulator, Brendan Carr, has been reviewing the agreement for several months.

Redstone was ruined after Trump pluck to CBS’s 60 minutes On April 13, after stories on Ukraine and Greenland. He called CBS’s CEO George Cheeks asking what other stories were preparing, said a person who knew this.

“He did not ask for editions of the stories, all he asked is for them to be fair and balanced,” said a person close to Redstone. “His thought was:” We are now in the eyes of the storm. He is posting on pieces, “added the person.

Journalists in the CBS newsroom have taken Redstone’s movements as an example of a billionaire owner who is in the publishing strategy. During the last year, Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos and Pharma’s billionaire, Patrick soon In the same way he got angry at the news rooms In the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, respectively.

60 minutes’ Bill Owens of the upper producer quit Last week, protesting what he said was a loss of journalistic independence. In an unusual reconstruction in the air, 60 minutes The anchor Scott Pelley ended the Sunday broadcast by saying -the viewers that Paramount had begun to “supervise our content in new ways” while trying to complete a merger.

The Paramount Conundrum emphasizes the unusual power that the President of the United States has exercised over corporate America.

Carn denies that the CBS demand has affected its deliberation on Paramount’s treatment. But Paramount executives believe that the two processes are intertwined.

The saga has criticized CBS journalists, who say that the concession of Paramount to Trump would make permanent damage to the news organization.

“In capitular (Redstone would be) harming the value of the asset he tries to sell, basically saying in the world that one of the most stored brands of news can be silenced, manipulated or humiliated when it is convenient,” said Gabriel Kahn, a former Wall Street Journal publisher who is now a professor at South California University.

60 minutes It has been a north -American room equipment since the 1970’s and the home of journalistic legends such as Walter Cronkite. The program still contributes 7 million viewers on Sunday night. It has continued to cause wide coverage of the Trump administration in recent weeks.

“In journalism, the currency is confidence,” Kahn said. “CBS News is one of the few places that has still been able to maintain a high level of confidence and a strong reputation (in the United States).”

The New York Times previously reported details of the Paramount plans and the April Council meeting.

Trump last year sued ABC News after the anchor George Stephanopoulos falsely said in the air that Trump had been “responsible for the violation.” Disney, who owns ABC in December Paid 15 million dollars In the Trump presidential library to resolve the demand for slander.

Trump went out to CBS again on Wednesday when mediation began.

“The case we have against 60 minutes, CBS, and Paramount is a real winner. They deceived and defrauded the North -American people at levels never seen before in the political field,” he wrote on his social network platform. “CBS is out of control, at levels never seen and they should pay a great price for it. Make America again great!”

Additional Reports of Christopher Grimes