President Trump’s blistering jabs at CBS over its recent settlement are exactly the kind of wake-up calls America needs for a media class that has long acted above the law. For months the legacy networks treated him like an untouchable punching bag, and when CBS quietly wrote a check to make accusations go away it exposed who rules the newsroom: lawyers and corporate dealmakers, not truth.
The settlement itself was no small surrender — Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to resolve Trump’s suit over a contentious 60 Minutes segment, and the company insisted the payment would go to his future presidential library while refusing to admit wrongdoing. That sum and the circumstances of the deal looked less like journalistic accountability and more like corporate self-preservation as Paramount pursued a major merger and sought to avoid a courtroom spotlight.
Conservatives should not shy from celebrating when the powerful are held to account, and Trump’s mockery of CBS for “paying him millions” in the unreleased portion of his Megyn Kelly interview was both deserved and instructive. Media elites who long lectured Americans about virtue suddenly discovered they answer to boards and regulators — and to the American people — when confronted with their own hubris; it’s worth noting Megyn Kelly aired parts of that conversation to remind viewers who’s been running the show.
Then came the icing on the cake: Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of The Free Press and the appointment of Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News. The move, reportedly part of a roughly $150 million deal, signals a seismic shake-up at a network that has for decades tilted in one ideological direction, and it represents a chance to restore viewpoint diversity and common-sense reporting.
Predictably, the professional journalist class cried foul — as if corporate management accepting political and regulatory realities were a betrayal rather than a correction. But Americans tired of one-sided coverage will welcome a media that is willing to interrogate all sides, and Weiss’s hiring shows that even legacy institutions can be nudged back toward balance when shareholders and the public demand it.
This episode should teach a simple lesson: institutions bend when voters and outsiders refuse to tolerate bias and secrecy. Hardworking Americans deserve newsrooms that report facts without fear or favor, and if President Trump’s confrontations force a return to accountability at CBS and elsewhere, that’s a win for the country.
