In a legal move that will have media observers scrutinising any potential impact on the Paramount Global-Skydance merger, the media giant and its CBS network have filed a motion to dismiss US president Donald Trump’s $20bn lawsuit stemming from a pre-election interview with Kamala Harris.
Arguing an “affront to the First Amendment” protecting free speech, the motion on Thursday comes after Paramount Global and Trump recently agreed to appoint a mediator to explore a settlement of the case.
Trump filed a lawsuit last October after CBS aired a lengthy response by then Democratic presidential candidate Harris to a question about Gaza on its ‘Face The Nation’ programme, and ran a more concise version of her reply on its ’60 Minutes’ show the following day.
The then Republican presidential hopeful alleged the response was edited deceptively and presented Harris as being more coherent than she actually was. He added that the network’s edit violated state and federal consumer fraud laws by causing confusion and creating unfair competition with his social platform Truth Social.
CBS said at the time that editing in this way was standard practice to accommodate time constraints. The network had offered to conduct and run an interview with Trump around the same, which he declined.
When news about the mediator emerged last week, it was widely seen as a ploy by Paramount Global controlling shareholder Shari Redstone to push the $8bn Skydance deal over the finish line and not further enrage the president.
The White House incumbent is notoriously sensitive about and hostile towards what he perceives to be unfriendly media coverage and recently appointed Brendan Carr to chair the Federal Communications Commission, which is tasked with reviewing mergers. Redstone and her executives are concerned Carr may hold up the Skydance deal. Several weeks ago the chair reopened an investigation into CBS’s handling of the Harris interview.
Thursday’s filing defended CBS’s exercise of editorial judgement and added: “Whether Plaintiffs [Trump] believe the entire unedited interview should have aired or only [been] edited in a way they approve, they are not entitled under the First Amendment to demand only news that fits their wishes.”
The two motions argued to dismiss on the grounds that consumer fraud laws do not control editorial speech; and that the Texas court where Trump filed his lawsuit lacks jurisdiction to try the case given that Trump is based in Florida, and CBS is based in New York and did not film the interview in the state or target Texan viewers.
No comments yet