• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 7 hours ago

Corporate pressure on CBS News to take it easy on Trump earlier this year led to turmoil in the news division as two top executives resigned on principle and the rank-and-file wondered if the parent company could ever be relied upon to support their work.

Now, in the wake of the FCC granting its approval last week of the merger of CBS parent Paramount Global and Skydance Media, indications are that CBS News will still not be totally free to work autonomously.

Instead, the CEO of Skydance, David Ellison, reportedly made a promise to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr that the new, merged company would work to ensure that CBS News commits itself to unbiased journalism and “editorial decision-making [that] reflects the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers,” reported The Wall Street Journal on Friday.

“Americans no longer trust the legacy national news media to report fully, accurately, and fairly,” FCC Chairman Carr is quoted as saying.

“It is time for a change,” he said, essentially parroting his boss, President Trump. “That is why I welcome Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network.”

That last sentence practically makes it sound as if the government will run the show at CBS News, and not the newly merged company.

In addition, the company also agreed to establish an ombudsman at CBS News to review “any complaints of bias or other concerns,” the WSJ reported. What could possibly go wrong? 

An ombudsman hired by corporate to ride herd on the editorial decision-making of CBS News will only exacerbate the gloom already pervading the news division in the wake of all the drama earlier this year.

Indeed, the biggest casualty of this year’s merger drama was the editorial freedom of CBS News.

Trump’s lawsuit filed late last year blew up a tiny, ordinary edit in a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris -- the type of edit that TV news organizations do a hundred times every day -- into a ludicrous accusation of election fraud.

Paramount and CBS entered into mediation with Trump’s attorneys with the hope of hammering out a settlement deal.

But the eventual settlement, under which CBS agreed to pay Trump $16 million for some sort of damages, drew boos and catcalls from both inside and outside the company.

To just about everybody, the payoff had the aroma of bribery because Trump was holding up the merger until the suit could be settled in his favor.

Basically, the corporation caved rather than fight for the right of CBS News to tweak a few seconds of video whenever it wanted to.

The settlement caused turmoil in the CBS news unit as editors and correspondents wondered if they had the company’s support to freely cover the president going forward. 

The fact is, they did not have that support as long as the merger was still pending. Now, even after the FCC’s OK, they might still not have it. 

This year’s drama included the resignations of CBS News veteran Bill Owen, executive producer of “60 Minutes,” and CBS News President Wendy McMahon.

They both felt that one or the other was going to be pressured into apologizing to Trump on behalf of CBS News as part of the settlement of the lawsuit.

No one ever put it this way that I know of, but agreeing to these apologies would have amounted to selling CBS News down the river.

Now, with the appointment of an ombudsman overseer and airy promises made to the government that the company would police its news content for perceived biases, a boat trip down the river might still be in the offing for CBS News.

Photo credit: CBS News/60 Minutes - Lesley Stahl in Gaza last year.