Jamie Raskin Files Complaint To CBS News Ombudsman Over ’60 Minutes’ Edits To Donald Trump Interview
Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, filed a complaint about that route with the newly appointed CBS News ombudsman on Wednesday. 60 Minutes He edited the latest interview with Donald Trump.
Raskin’s letter to ombudsman Kenneth Weinstein also requests information about Trump’s influence on the network following the administration’s approval of the Skydance-Paramount merger.
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raskin he wrote in his letter“President Trump appears to be exerting increasingly direct control over CBS’s editorial decisions, destroying CBS’s ‘journalistic integrity’ while violating its right to be free from government pressure and manipulation.”
The company, under David Ellison, agreed to appoint an ombudsman to handle complaints about its news division’s coverage as it seeks the FCC’s green light.
Congressman touched on Trump’s attitude 60 Minutes Sit down with Norah O’Donnell. The interview lasted approximately 90 minutes, but only 28 minutes were broadcast. In the interest of transparency, CBS posted the full transcript and a 73-minute extended version of the interview online.
The publication of the full text allowed for a new level of scrutiny into what was left out and what was left out in the publication.
Raskin wrote: “When interviewer Norah O’Donnell asked about the appearance of corruption behind President Trump’s pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao — who pleaded guilty to money laundering and whose company struck a $2 billion deal with the Trump family cryptocurrency venture — President Trump got defensive: “I can’t say because — I can’t — I’m not worried. I don’t – I wouldn’t prefer you to ask the question. But I let you ask. “By removing this conversation about potential conflicts of interest from both video versions, CBS deprived the public of critical information about President Trump’s apparent pay-to-play pardon plan and his obvious discomfort.”
Raskin also noted that the broadcast and online video omitted a portion of the interview in which Trump “bragged about taking down the network.”
Trump: “Actually 60 Minutes He paid me a lot of money. And you don’t have to wear it because I don’t want to embarrass you…. 60 Minutes They had to pay me; because they took too much money [Vice President Harris’s] Saying it was too bad changed the choice.”
Before the Skydance-Paramount merger was given the green light by the FCC, Paramount’s previous regime agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump over the news magazine’s editing of an interview with Kamala Harris just weeks before last year’s presidential election. Although many legal experts and the network itself viewed the lawsuit as unfounded, it was seen as an obstacle to approval of the merger agreement.
A Paramount spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Hill first reported Raskin’s letter.
Raskin’s complaint changes the situation somewhat, as the Paramount-appointed ombudsman is expected to field complaints mostly from the right, not the left. In his letter, Raskin raised issues about how Weinstein would handle complaints.
Weinstein is the former president and CEO of the Hudson Institute, a right-leaning D.C. think tank. “Your role is fundamentally different from traditional news ombudsmen in that instead of advocating for public opinion, you report directly to Paramount executives,” Raskin wrote. Among other things, it asks Weinstein to “provide a written description of the editorial standards you applied in reviewing the complaints, including how you defined improper bias against legitimate editorial judgment and whether allowing interviewees to guide editorial decisions violated CBS News standards.”
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