Dear John,
It’s a perfect storm to deliver maximum damage to the free press: Trump’s authoritarian attacks designed to weaken opposition and chill free speech, mixed with Paramount’s motive to curry the President’s favor for a potential merger.
Paramount Global is on the verge of an $8 billion merger with Skydance Media – a deal that could deliver a major payday to Shari Redstone, Paramount’s controlling shareholder. But first, the merger must be approved by Trump’s Federal Communications Commission.
That’s where the pressure starts. Last year, Trump filed an outrageous $20 billion lawsuit against Paramount’s subsidiary, CBS, over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris that he felt edited out some rambling answers.
The lawsuit is legally baseless. But Brendan Carr, Trump’s head of the FCC, has made no secret of the fact: He has publicly stated that the FCC will consider Trump’s “news distortion complaint” in its review of the potential merger. Privately, Carr has reportedly told Paramount that resolving Trump’s grudge is a prerequisite for regulatory approval.
This is political blackmail: Settle with Trump, or your merger may be dead on arrival.
Legal experts agree it’s an easy win. But now, reports indicate Paramount is considering paying Trump up to $75 million just to make the problem go away – not because they fear the courts, but because they fear Trump’s extortion tactics and his threats to nix the FCC approval. We cannot allow billion-dollar corporations to treat free speech as a bargaining chip.
Send a direct message to Paramount’s Board and controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone: Don’t capitulate to Trump’s attacks. Stand up for free speech!
This isn’t just about CBS. This is about whether the President of the United States will be allowed to intimidate the press through frivolous lawsuits and backroom threats. It’s about whether powerful media companies will fight for the First Amendment, or fold to protect their narrow business interests.
Senator Bernie Sanders and nine other Democratic senators have urged Shari Redstone and the Paramount board to reconsider, writing:
“This lawsuit is an attack on the United States Constitution and the First Amendment. It has absolutely no merit and it cannot stand. In the United States of America, presidents do not get to punish or censor the media for criticizing them.”
They’re right. Settling now would send a dangerous signal: that the President of the United States can bully the press into silence. That’s not democracy. It’s dictatorship.
There are already reports that Redstone has pressured CBS to delay stories critical of Trump until after the merger. One longtime “60 Minutes” executive producer has resigned over the interference.
Paramount must not surrender our freedoms for corporate convenience. Don’t let them trade away the First Amendment for a merger deal!
When CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite was repeatedly voted “the most trusted man in America” in 60’s and 70’s opinion polls, he left us with a grave warning that still resonates half a century later: “Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy.”
Today, that freedom and that democracy is imperiled. Tell Paramount and Shari Redstone: Don’t settle with Trump. Don’t reward his attacks on the press.
I thank you for standing up for the First Amendment and defending the Constitution.
Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action
