The Price of Approval: How Paramount Sold Out the First Amendment for a Merger
SLAPPs, regulatory coercion, and media consolidation are colliding to undermine the future of press freedom. The cost of silence has never been higher.
Seth Stern, Director of Advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation – a Protect the Protest Coalition member organization – is a leading voice on press freedom. Seth offers a detailed analysis of the troubling $16 million settlement between Paramount and Donald Trump and how this case illustrates the growing use of SLAPPs, regulatory pressure, and political coercion to erode our First Amendment rights. Seth explains what this means for journalists, whistleblowers, and everyone who relies on a free press to hold power accountable.
A Closer Look at the Settlement: Corporate Pressure, Merger Politics, and FCC Manipulation
President Trump’s lawsuit against Paramount alleged that 60 Minutes deceptively edited Kamala Harris’s answer to a question about the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and thereby misled consumers, interfered with the election (which Trump, of course, won) and even unfairly competed with Truth Social. The claims are nonsense – the First Amendment unequivocally protects editing decisions. And anyway, how could the edits have been deceptive? Both Harris’s full answer and her edited one were gibberish excuses for the Biden administration’s inaction and complicity. I’m not aware of one legal expert who believed the case had any merit, and there was no reason for Paramount to even think about settling it, especially for anything beyond nuisance value.
But Paramount was set to merge with Skydance Media – a merger that would be extremely lucrative for its controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone – and that needed approval from Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Trump’s FCC is chaired by Brendan Carr, who wears a golden bust of Trump as a lapel pin. Carr had launched his own investigation of CBS, mirroring the allegations of Trump’s complaint, and has made clear that he plans to use the FCC to carry out Trump’s ideological agenda. There were numerous news reports that Paramount leadership believed settling with Trump was a prerequisite to getting Carr’s approval of the merger, and that management was concerned they could be held liable to shareholders or charged with bribery. U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Ron Wyden called for an investigation, as did state senators in California, and probed the CEO of Skydance Media directly.
And yet, Paramount agreed to settle the lawsuit with Trump for $16 million in early July, with a reported side deal for Skydance to chip in $20 million of pro-Trump public service announcements once it takes over Paramount. Then last week, two days after Trump announced he’d received Paramount’s payment, Carr approved the merger. The shamelessness of it all is mind boggling.
Threatening Press Freedom and Setting a Dangerous Precedent
The implications for press freedom are serious and far-reaching. Of course, Trump is chiefly to blame for bullying the press through lawfare and regulatory shakedowns. But unfortunately, no one realistically expects Trump to respect the free press. We expect better from news outlets though, including their corporate owners. There are plenty of other ways to make money available to companies that don’t want the responsibility that comes with running a news outlet. Go sell toothpaste or cat food or something; they’re more lucrative anyway. But if you’re going to be a part of the Fourth Estate, be prepared to stand up for the First Amendment, not cave to pressure from government officials and throw journalists under the bus for a pay day.
It’s telling that a central issue in Paramount’s settlement negotiations was reportedly that it wanted to settle for the same ballpark amount as Disney’s $15M settlement with Trump earlier this year. In legitimate settlement discussions, that wouldn’t be much of a factor. Who cares what someone else paid to settle a different lawsuit, with different legal claims, based on different facts? But Disney had set a market rate for presidential shakedowns of media outlets and Paramount followed suit. We hope others won’t similarly capitulate. Whereas the Disney settlement happened quickly and caught people off guard, the drawn out Paramount settlement was a PR nightmare for Redstone and Paramount with months of criticism and public shaming. I don’t think other media companies will want to be fodder for South Park, plus there’s the threat of investigation and civil and criminal liability that will hopefully deter others.
Growing Vulnerability of Journalists to Political Retaliation
Meanwhile, the settlement has created a chilling climate for working journalists. Skydance reportedly committed to Carr that it would appoint an ombudsman to monitor “bias” (which, to Carr, presumably means anything unflattering to Trump). The administration’s strategy of using its merger approval authorities as leverage to extract content-related commitments from a news company is almost as disturbing as its financial shakedown. I would imagine that many CBS journalists are headed for the exits.
Beyond CBS itself, I think this settlement’s impact will be more on the corporate side than the individual journalist side, but there are plenty of challenges the administration has created for reporters: Trump’s investigations of leaks that embarrass him – which discourage sources from coming forward, his revocations of access when outlets don’t print what he wants, his obliteration of FOIA offices, and his administration’s repeated and ridiculous claims that reporting on ICE operations is somehow criminal. Add to this factors that predate Trump, like the news industry’s dire economic problems and the threat of prosecution for routine newsgathering and reporting (which the Biden administration heightened through its Espionage Act plea deal with Julian Assange and its Computer Fraud and Abuse Act charges against Tim Burke). It all adds up to a very difficult time to be a journalist, and especially a good journalist who doesn’t pull punches. There’s still plenty of great journalism being produced, but we’ll never know how much more there would be without all these obstacles.
Expected Chilling Effects and a Larger Pattern of Press Suppression
And this goes far beyond CBS. If the CEO of Skydance Media, David Ellison, wants to buy CBS and turn it into a MAGA propaganda outlet, he is entitled by law to do so. But the First Amendment should be able to stop the government from compelling him to do so by threatening his business interests if he doesn’t. Just a few years ago, revelations that the government was even talking to Twitter was a major scandal. If that was jawboning, then what’s this? It certainly puts to rest the myth we’ve all been fed that giant corporations and billionaires can be expected to operate news outlets without editorial interference. Owners have long-claimed to wall themselves off from the newsroom and never meddle in editorial matters. I don’t know if that was ever entirely true, but it was more believable when the interference was more subtle.
The corporate media has certainly disappointed before – Iraq war coverage, to give one obvious example – but it wasn’t clear whether the self-censorship and both-sidesing were in response to direct commands from up top or to broader market forces. But a worrisome pattern has emerged: ownership might be relatively hands-off when it doesn’t matter, but when it comes down to it and their financial interests are really at stake, they’re going to sell out independent journalism and the First Amendment.
The erosion of press freedom doesn't happen all at once. It happens one settlement, one concession, and one silence at a time. We’ve seen plenty of companies that made a big show of how compassionate and ethical they supposedly were in 2020 do a complete 180 the second the political winds blew in the other direction. And that’s only the public facing component – who knows what’s going on behind the scenes. Plus, in plenty of sectors appeasing Trump isn’t even a matter of caving – while Trump’s agenda may be a threat to the news industry, they’re a boon to polluters, war profiteers, and plenty of others. And we’re going to need a free press to cover the fallout.
We hope this won’t affect people’s willingness or ability to speak out on issues of public concern – there are plenty of news outlets that people can bring stories to besides CBS. I don’t want to say not to go to CBS, because there are still great journalists there, but I can certainly understand why a whistleblower or source would want to take their scoops elsewhere. Again, hopefully independent journalists and news outlets will benefit from the lack of trust in the corporate media that is likely to increase exponentially in light of this settlement.
Where Do We Go From Here?
What happens next will depend on how much public pressure we can sustain. Continued public shaming and accountability for those involved, both on the government side and the corporate side, is crucial. We can’t let them move on and sweep this chapter under the rug. For example, Freedom of the Press Foundation just filed an attorney disciplinary complaint against Carr that we hope the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel will take seriously, because it’s hard to imagine more egregious attorney misconduct than a lawyer assisting a president in laundering shakedown money through the court system. We’ve also retained counsel to explore our litigation options as Paramount shareholders. As I mentioned, various lawmakers have said they plan to hold Paramount leadership to account. The Trump administration isn’t going to prosecute them but the statute of limitations for bribery is five years. Hopefully everyone raising their voices about this now will remember to follow up in 2026 and 2029.
Seth is the director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, a Protect the Protest Coalition member organization. He oversees FPF’s efforts to promote policies that protect press freedom and stand up for journalists and whistleblowers who have been denied their rights. Prior to joining FPF, Seth practiced media and First Amendment law in Chicago for over a decade. Before that, he worked as a reporter and editor in the Chicago, Illinois, and Atlanta, Georgia, areas. He lives in the Chicago area.
The Protect the Protest Coalition is a group of nonprofit organizations that have come together to fight back against strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs). Many of our members have been targets of these abusive lawsuits themselves, and all of us understand how SLAPPs are weaponized to silence dissent and undermine movements for justice. We work collectively to defend the right to speak out against powerful interests, especially when public interest advocacy is under threat.