Category Archives: CBS

Former CBS anchor slams Paramount settlement with Trump: ‘It was a sellout’

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Dan Rather laments ‘sad day for journalism’ after company settles for $16m over 60 Minutes Kamala Harris interview

A former CBS News anchor and 60 minutes correspondent, Dan Rather, has blasted the $16m settlement between Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, and Donald Trump, calling it a “sad day for journalism”.

“It’s a sad day for 60 Minutes and CBS News,” Rather, a veteran journalist who was a CBS News anchor for over 20 years, told Variety in an interview published on Wednesday. “I hope people will read the details of this and understand what it was. It was distortion by the president and a kneeling down and saying, ‘yes, sir,’ by billionaire corporate owners.”

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Paramount settles with Trump for $16m over ‘60 Minutes’ Kamala Harris interview

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Paramount said it would pay the $16m to Trump’s future presidential library and not to Trump himself. It also said the settlement did not include a statement of apology or regret.

CBS parent company Paramount on Wednesday settled a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump over an interview broadcast in October, in the latest concession by a media company to the US president, who has targeted outlets over what he describes as false or misleading coverage.

Paramount said it would pay $16m to settle the suit with the money allocated to Trump’s future presidential library, and not paid to Trump “directly or indirectly”.

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Bill Moyers, Lyndon Johnson press chief and celebrated broadcaster, dies at 91

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Moyers, who served as Johnson’s press secretary for two years, became one of television’s most revered journalists

Bill Moyers, the former White House press secretary who became one of television’s most honored journalists, masterfully using a visual medium to illuminate a world of ideas, died on Thursday at age 91.

Moyers died in a New York City hospital, according to longtime friend Tom Johnson, the former chief executive of CNN and an assistant to Moyers during Lyndon B Johnson’s administration.

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Trump complains the US media aren’t bending to his will. Aren’t they?

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Despite owners and networks forsaking journalistic independence, Trump continues to threaten journalists

In the telling of Donald Trump and his Republican colleagues, the US media is fake news, stocked with “radical-left monsters” who are guilty of “illegal” reporting on the president.

The reality is different.

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Host of CBS’s 60 Minutes rebukes corporate owners Paramount on-air

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Scott Pelley castigated network over independence pending sale to Skydance Media requiring Trump’s approval

A host of CBS’s 60 Minutes flagship news show rebuked the show’s corporate owners on Sunday evening, part of a dispute over journalists’ independence amid a lawsuit from Donald Trump and attempted sale.

For decades, the broadcast news program has been a destination for investigative journalism and home to America’s most venerated broadcast journalists – including Sunday evening’s host Scott Pelley.

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Trump v 60 Minutes is a stunning battle for the soul of US media

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President’s tensions with CBS show barely scratch surface of crusade against media he calls ‘enemy of the people’

Donald Trump’s battle with a US media he considers an “enemy of the people” has been a signature fight of his second term in office, sparking warnings of an erosion of press freedoms in America and fears over the independence of key publications owned by billionaires seeking to become close to the president.

But one struggle has now taken center stage that puts one of the most prestigious brands in US journalism in a direct legal fight with the White House, which has also dragged in a gigantic multibillion-dollar Wall Street deal by the corporate owners of one of America’s main broadcast networks.

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Outgoing FCC chair rejects TV bias complaints that ‘curtail press freedom’

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Complaints accuse TV stations and networks of promotion of 2020 election falsehoods, bias and ‘news distortion’

The outgoing chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ordered it to reject four complaints and petitions against television stations, saying she believes the complaints “seek to curtail freedom of the press and undermine the First Amendment”.

In a statement on Thursday, just days before she is set to step down, Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, said all four complaints were essentially political in nature. She described them as attempts to “weaponize the licensing authority of the FCC”.

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Walz-Vance debate: when is it and how can I watch?

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The debate between the Ohio senator and Minnesota governor will be hosted by CBS News at 9pm ET on Tuesday

Tim Walz and JD Vance will face off Tuesday night in the first – and only – vice-presidential debate before the November election. With the campaigns currently neck-and-neck in the polls, and with voting under way in some states, it’s a chance for the would-be vice-presidents to introduce themselves to a wide US audience.

While VP debates don’t usually tip the scales much, they could matter in a close race – and they build profiles for lower-profile politicians who will probably stay on the national scene for years to come.

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‘I won’t be 80’: Michael J Fox describes struggles with Parkinson’s

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The actor, who was diagnosed aged 29, said advancing disease had caused him a string of injuries but he was still able to remain optimistic

Back to the Future star Michael J Fox described Parkinson’s as a “gift that keeps on taking” in an interview on CBS Sunday Morning, in which he described his struggles with the illness.

The 61-year-old activist and former Hollywood actor was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson’s disease a year after Back to the Future Part III was released in 1990.

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Trump ‘deeply wounded narcissist’ says former White House lawyer

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Ty Cobb served during the ex-president’s administration and claimed it was one of his two toxic traits dictating his actions

A lawyer who served in the White House during Donald Trump’s administration, said the ex-president is a “deeply wounded narcissist”, claiming that’s one of the two toxic traits that dictate his actions and decision making.

Ty Cobb, who stepped down in 2018 because of Trump’s disapproval of his “conciliatory” approach, also said Trump is “incapable of acting other than in his perceived self-interest or for revenge”.

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The Activist: reality TV show to be ‘reimagined’ as documentary after backlash

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CBS says it will drop X-Factor-style competition from celebrity-fronted show after widespread criticism

A reality TV show that planned to pit activists against each other in an X-Factor style contest judged by celebrities is to be drastically “reimagined” after it sparked a backlash from campaigners.

The Activist, which had been due to air in the US in late October, prompted incredulity among many campaigners and elsewhere when its format was revealed last week, with many labelling it a “tone-deaf” distortion of true activists’ values.

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The Activist: ‘tone-deaf’ new TV show has activists compete to lobby G20 leaders

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CBS programme has caused a social media storm for its crass choice of format and ill-qualified judges

Producers have billed it as an exciting new twist on reality television: an X-Factor style competition between campaigners that will give them the chance to lobby world leaders at the G20.

But The Activist, a show announced last week by the American network CBS, has already learned to its cost that people power can be unpredictable, ruthless and highly effective.

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Harry and Meghan aim to avoid embarrassing Queen in Oprah interview

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‘Tell-all’ interview announcement has prompted reports it will lead to couple being stripped of patronages

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will not wish to embarrass the Queen despite frenzied speculation over their planned “wide-ranging” interview with Oprah Winfrey, it is understood.

The announcement by CBS of a “tell-all” intimate account by Harry and Meghan of their “Megxit” departure from the UK has led to reports it is the final straw for an exasperated Buckingham Palace who will strip the couple of their royal patronages.

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Rapist goes on the run after leaping out of dock and fleeing court

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'Boof and 'Devil's Triangle WERE sexual terms': Kavanaugh's freshman year roommate says the SCOTUS nominee lied under oath to senators about excessive drinking and his yearbook entries FBI report does NOT corroborate Christine Blasey Ford's claims that she was sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh, White House sources say as Trump is briefed and a SINGLE copy is handed to all 100 senators to share and read in a secure room More than 1,200 law professors sign letter urging the Senate to reject Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation because he 'did not display the judicial temperament' required for the Supreme Court Senators will see FBI's Kavanaugh report from 8am, but will NOT be allowed to discuss the contents, as Democrats claim bureau's background check ALREADY included warnings about allegations of sexual misconduct Lectures on sexual impropriety from a Clinton? CBS fails to ask Chelsea once ... (more)

Dilan seeking to toss Salazar off Democratic primary ballot over…

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Les Moonves and CBS Face Allegations of Sexual Misconduct - Six women accuse the C.E.O. of harassment and intimidation, and dozens more describe abuse at his company. - For more than twenty years, Leslie Moonves has been one of the most powerful media executives in America.

Protesters pack Capitol Square to fight Trump immigration policy

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Hundreds of people gathered at the Capitol Square in Richmond to protest the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy toward undocumented immigrants, prompting the separation of thousands of children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to CBS 6. U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who attended the rally, said the demonstrations are a way of showing the Trump administration that people do not approve of the family separation policy. "And bluntly, the president thought he could separate kids form their parents and the American public wouldn't care.

The ‘go-to lawyer’ for insurers fighting flood claims is this Metairie attorney: report

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Flood insurance -- the costs, benefits, risks and rewards of the federally backed program -- is a familiar topic to Louisianians. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Louisiana Flood of 2016 drove home its advantages as well as its outrages -- the latest being that as much as two thirds of the money paid by property owners for coverage goes to private insurance companies and the lawyers who are hired to fight claims.