Paramount has settled for at least $16 million in a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump over a “deceptive edit” of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s interview aired by CBS News’s “60 Minutes,” which Paramount owns. In addition to the monetary settlement, CBS has also agreed to change its editorial standards to require prompt release of unedited transcripts. But far more newsworthy than the settlement itself is the mainstream media’s histrionic response.

In an article presenting itself as straight news, the Associated Press began by describing the case as “a closely-watched test of whether a corporation would back its journalists and stand up to President Donald Trump.” The second paragraph added, “Journalists were infuriated Wednesday and a senator wants to investigate whether bribery laws were broken.” (The run-on error is original to the AP; it’s hard to catch grammatical errors in a white-hot rage.)

“60 Minutes” producer Rome Hartman called the settlement “a cowardly capitulation,” while the Freedom of the Press Foundation labeled it “spineless.” CNN’s Brian Stelter said the settlement was a “disturbing development” that creates “a worrisome, slippery slope.” Other commentators described the settlement as “repulsive,” “utterly appalling,” and “for cowards.” Former Congressman Adam Kinzinger wondered if “boycotts [may be] called for.”

Still others went beyond emotional venting to alleging that actual crimes had occurred. At “60 Minutes,” “everyone thinks this lawsuit is an act of extortion, everyone,” an unnamed CBS correspondent griped. Columbia Journalism School professor Marlow Stern accused President Trump of blackmail and an “unprecedented level of corruption.” Atlantic writer David Frum called it “Presidential extortion as a tool of power and corruption.”

The Writers Guild of America East, the union for “60 Minutes” writers, alleged a quid pro quo, opining that the settlement was a “transparent attempt to curry favors with an administration in the hopes it will allow Paramount Global and Skydance Media merger to be cleared for approval.”

It’s true that Paramount is pursuing a merger with Skydance, and that the merger is subject to approval by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). And it’s a good, journalistic instinct to show connections readers may otherwise miss.

But reporters must endeavor to demonstrate connections, not merely allege them. Both Paramount and FCC Chair Brendan Carr denied a relation between the “60 Minutes” lawsuit and the FCC merger approval process.

Reporters also have a responsibility to consider their topic from the perspective of the principal actors. If media partisans had taken a moment to reflect, they would have realized Paramount had multiple legitimate reasons to settle that had nothing to do with extortion or capitulation.

“In Wednesday’s shareholders meeting, Paramount co-CEO George Cheeks said companies often settle litigation to avoid high legal costs and the unpredictability of a trial,” the AP wrote. “Settlement allows a company to focus on its objectives ‘rather than being mired in uncertainty and distraction,’ Cheeks said.” When the objective is a major merger, it makes sense to clean up uncertain liabilities, like pending lawsuits, in the most expeditious manner.

In other words, successful companies know how to find the best solution to a problem, whether that solution is the least risky, the least costly, or simply the fastest. Sometimes, even if a company stands a good chance of winning a lawsuit, it makes more sense for them to settle instead. Anyone who has ever eaten the cost of a bungled online order, rather than bear the hassle or cost of return shipping, understands the principle.

CBS News is not the first media organization to settle a lawsuit. In December 2024, ABC News settled a defamation lawsuit with President Trump for a similar amount of $15 million, over anchor George Stephanopoulos’s repeated claim that the president had been held “liable for rape.” In 2023, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems a record-shattering $787.5 million over the false claims of multiple commentators about the role Dominion voting machines played in the 2020 election.

In addition to overlooking Paramount’s legitimate reasons to settle, the overwrought media respondents overlooked another crucial possibility: perhaps “60 Minutes” really had messed up.

Take a moment, if you will, to descend the mental vault of long-term memories, to the distant past — October 2024. Wipe off the dust, brush away the cobwebs, and recall the marvelous fact that Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris largely avoided media interviews, even as she was air-dropped into the race after the historic implosion of President Joe Biden on a July debate stage. Opponents charged that Harris avoided interviews because she was a poor speaker, who could utter lots of words without actually saying anything; the critique cut deeply because it rang true.

Finally shamed into a sit-down interview, Harris’s team scheduled her for one of the friendliest environment’s imaginable, “60 Minutes.” Their choice of interviewee and their concerns about their candidate’s speaking ability were quickly justified.

“When interviewer Bill Whitaker queried Harris about the Biden-Harris administration’s diplomatic relationship with Israel, Harris began with a rambling, lost prelude that amounted to her typical rhetorical churn. Then she collected herself and remembered her canned answer,” National Review’s Jeffrey Blehar recounted. “Later on, when the interview aired on 60 Minutes, that opening word jumble — which made Harris look remarkably weak — was edited away from Harris’s response. Instead of looking like a deer in the headlights unable to quickly answer, she was presented to viewers as a crisper speaker and thinker than she was.”

Blehar added that this was an “obvious exercise of ‘news judgment’ in a manner so clearly prejudicial in favor of Harris, concealing her most glaring weakness — her vacuous incoherence.”

This is exactly what Trump’s lawsuit charged. As CNN put it, Trump “claimed without evidence that the Harris exchange was deliberately edited to benefit the Democratic candidate and hurt him.” But the evidence was manifest for those willing to see it.

In fact, “60 Minutes” proudly defended the way that it edited Harris’s answers to make her appear “more succinct.” They argued that “journalists regularly edit interviews — for time, space, or clarity.” While generally true, this response papers over the fact that one of Harris’s major weaknesses was her lack of clarity, and the media simply fixed it for her.

But the feature that raised the journalistic malpractice even higher was the lack of transparency. The controversy surrounding the interview continued through the election, primarily because “60 Minutes” refused to release the unedited transcript until forced to by the FCC in February. This was an odd decision, because immediate transparency would have settled the whole controversy right away.

Meanwhile, the “60 Minutes” controversy metastasized into a grievance issue for mainstream journalists. In recent months, multiple CBS executives resigned, complaining about increased Paramount oversight resulting in a loss of editorial independence, even though Paramount never killed any stories.

The motivation for increased Paramount oversight is clear; irresponsible reporting opens up greater liability to even more lawsuits, a point the recent Fox News and ABC News settlements reinforce. The grounds for CBS executives to object was less clear; their employers have a right to know — even direct — what they are working on.

Other media commentators have even less cause to object to the way Paramount chooses to run its news business. Financial interests and lawsuit precedent convinced Paramount that settling was the best option. Instead of recognizing these reasonable factors, or instead of grappling with the possibility that “60 Minutes” might possibly have made a mistake by its lack of transparency, figures across the media jumped straight to a frothing rage.

This is not a legitimate journalistic response. This is the response of people who believe they have a right to tell other people what they should feel — often with no other rationale than that those are their own emotions. No wonder Americans have lost confidence in the ability of such media personalities to report the news accurately and without bias.