When 60 Minutes producer Bill Owens resigned in April, correspondent Scott Pelley didn’t just praise his work—he revealed the real reason Owens walked away: interference from Paramount, CBS’s parent company, due to political pressure surrounding a pending merger with Skydance. Just days later, CBS News President Wendy McMahon followed suit.
As Market Institute Senior Fellow Norm Singleton details in RealClearMarkets, this interference stems from Paramount’s fear that critical news coverage of President Trump could prompt retaliation from the FCC, jeopardizing the deal.
“Pelley blamed the increased supervision of 60 Minutes on the fact that Paramount is currently seeking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s approval to be acquired by Skydance.”
At the center of this storm is a $100 billion lawsuit by President Trump over an edited interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump has gone so far as to call for CBS to lose its broadcast license—and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, has publicly questioned whether CBS is serving the “public interest.”
“Using that power to second guess editorial decisions of news programs violates the First Amendment.”
Singleton warns conservatives who may cheer the FCC’s scrutiny of CBS that this same precedent could be used by a future Democratic FCC against conservative media.
“Conservatives inclined to support using government regulatory authority to punish the ‘liberal media’ should consider how a future Democratic FCC Chair may use this precedent to target conservative news programs, particularly conservative talk radio.”
Instead of empowering government censors, Singleton urges support for Senator Rand Paul’s Free Speech Protection Act, which would bar federal employees and contractors from pressuring media outlets or online platforms to censor speech. Violators would face fines, job loss, and a lifetime ban from federal service.
“Passage of the Free Speech Protection Act will protect both ‘legacy’ and ‘new’ media from would-be censors on both the left and right.”
