In the next few days, focus closely on national TV straight-ahead news content as it concerns the Trump Administration and the media — especially against the backdrop of another TV news network-based company settlement with a Trump lawsuit.
Do you sense some TV news reports are altering news coverage in any way? Perhaps.
Paramount’s $16 million deal with Trump focused on the editing of an interview with then Democratic-presidential contender Kamala Harris.
As part of the settlement, Paramount’s CBS News has agreed to release a full transcript of any future interviews of eligible Presidential contenders. At the same time, Paramount does not acknowledge — as part of the settlement — any journalistic wrongdoing.
But does this stop there? What does this mean for news producers going forward when they are now editing TV news stories?
Editing — which include voiceovers and video content — is a basic and necessary journalistic process. So, going forward, a TV news producer must be thinking: What remains, what gets thrown out, and what is, say, “iffy” material?
ABC also made a somewhat similar $15 million deal earlier with the Trump Administration to settle a defamation lawsuit — money that will also go to a future Presidential Trump library — over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air assertion that Trump had been found civilly liable for the rape of writer E. Jean Carroll.
The bottom line is clear for legacy TV news networks: External pressures and concerns about potential retribution will now hover over TV news producers — as a precedent has been set. But not just for producers — for potentially deal-making media executives.
Many would suggest the obvious — at least in reference to Paramount Global: That payment was necessary, especially if the company wants to get approval by the Federal Communications Commission to go ahead with an $8 billion deal by Skydance Media to buy the company.
Critics of the Trump Administration would argue that the FCC should be deciding — independently — on the merits of the Paramount/Skydance deal — for example, when it comes to whether there were antitrust issues in play with the deal.
Analysts say this would be a no-brainer.
Legacy TV companies such as Paramount Global, Warner Bros. Discovery, and NBCUniversal are under severe financial pressure in a growing digital media world where the likes of Google, Facebook, TikTok, Netflix and others continue to dominate. Legacy media company stock prices — or their parent companies — have generally been limping along for years.
Proponents of CBS, ABC, and other top flight news organizations say they are now increasingly being dinged when it comes to freedom of the press rights — and that new content from legacy TV-based media continues to have long-term value.
It now has to be a tricky process — even perhaps reporting on this business news by those TV networks news programs.
Looking deeper, should this be something longtime TV news advertisers and brands need to be concerned with?
