# CBS News **CBS News** is the news division of the network that set the standard for American broadcast journalism — [[Edward R. Murrow]], [[Walter Cronkite]], [[60 Minutes]] — and, in 2025–26, the vault's defining case of [[Media Capture]]: a legacy newsroom realigned with state power not by a censorship law but by a change of owner. The long history is on the [[CBS Timeline]]; this page is about what the division is and how it was captured. ## What it is Founded with the network in 1927 under [[William S. Paley]], CBS News built its reputation on Murrow's wartime radio reporting and his 1954 confrontation with Joseph McCarthy, on Cronkite as "the most trusted man in America," and on *60 Minutes*, the most-watched news program in television history. For decades it sat inside [[Sumner Redstone]]'s [[Viacom]] and then [[Paramount Global]], controlled through [[National Amusements]] by [[Shari Redstone]] — a corporate parent with declining cable assets and a controlling shareholder who needed to sell. ## How it was captured The sequence matters because each step was individually defensible and the sum was not. 1. **The lawsuit.** On December 7, 2024 [[Donald Trump]] sued CBS and Paramount for $20B over the editing of a *60 Minutes* interview with [[Kamala Harris]] — a claim most media lawyers regarded as meritless. 2. **The leverage.** Redstone's sale of Paramount to [[David Ellison]]'s Skydance required FCC transfer of CBS's broadcast licenses, and FCC chair [[Brendan Carr]] made clear the "news distortion" complaint was live. 3. **The resignations.** [[Bill Owens]], *60 Minutes*' executive producer, resigned April 22, 2025 saying he no longer had editorial independence; CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon followed May 19. 4. **The settlement.** On July 2, 2025 Paramount paid **$16M** to the [[Donald J. Trump Presidential Library]], with no apology, and promised to release full transcripts of future presidential-candidate interviews. The FCC approved the Skydance merger weeks later ([[Skydance-Paramount]]). 5. **The new editor.** In October 2025 Paramount Skydance bought [[Bari Weiss]]'s [[The Free Press]] for $150M and made Weiss editor-in-chief of CBS News. 6. **The purge.** A completed *60 Minutes* segment on El Salvador's CECOT prison was pulled December 21, 2025; executive producer Tanya Simon was replaced by [[Nick Bilton]]; correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega were fired; and on June 2, 2026 [[Scott Pelley]] was fired the day after telling Bilton that Weiss was "murdering the show" — see [[Scott Pelley Firing]]. [[Stephen Colbert]]'s *Late Show* was cancelled on a parallel track. No one at CBS was ordered to cover the administration favorably. The owner settled a suit, the regulator approved a merger, the editor changed, and the people who objected left or were removed. That is what capture looks like when it works. ## What comes next Skydance-Paramount's **$110.9B agreement to buy [[Warner Bros. Discovery]]** (February 27, 2026) would put [[CNN]] and CBS News under the same owner — two of the three legacy news operations. DOJ cleared it June 12, 2026; twelve state attorneys general sued and the trial is set for March 2027. See [[Paramount Skydance - Warner Bros. Discovery Deal]]. ## See Also - [[CBS Timeline]] · [[Paramount Timeline]] · [[Right-Wing Media Timeline]] - [[60 Minutes]] · [[Scott Pelley Firing]] · [[Bill Owens]] · [[Bari Weiss]] · [[Nick Bilton]] · [[Scott Pelley]] - [[Skydance-Paramount]] · [[David Ellison]] · [[Shari Redstone]] · [[The Free Press]] - [[Media Capture]] · [[Media Consolidation]] · [[Brendan Carr]]