’60 Minutes’ Staffers Urged to Keep Show Ticking as Paramount Tangles With Trump
variety.comBrian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Staffers at “60 Minutes” urged one another to keep the venerable CBS newsmagazine going even as corporate parent Paramount Global investigates the possibility of settling what is seen as a flimsy defamation lawsuit tied to a report that ran on the show.
Speaking during a meeting held Monday, both correspondents Scott Pelley and Anderson Cooper cautioned an assemblage of employees who work for the Sunday-night mainstay against letting the lawsuit tear the show apart and distract people from the journalism is presents each week, according to a person familiar with the matter.
CBS News declined to make executives available for comment. Employees at the Paramount Global unit have grown increasingly wary of Paramount’s willingness to consider settling the matter, according to people familiar with conversations taking place, seeing such efforts as a move to keep the looming acquisition of the company by Skydance Media on track, rather than supporting honest newsgathering.
Filed in federal court in the Northern District of Texas in November, the suit alleges “60 Minutes” tried to mislead voters by airing two different edits of remarks made in an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, then Trump’s rival for the White House.
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