CBS News, facing another imbroglio over its coverage of the Trump administration, abruptly altered its rules on Friday for editing interviews on its long-running political show “Face the Nation.” The move came after days of attacks from Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who had accused the network of deceptively editing her appearance on the program.
“Face the Nation” will now air only interviews that are conducted live, or are prerecorded with no cuts or edits, according to a CBS News spokeswoman, who attributed the change “to audience feedback over the past week.”
“This extra measure means the television audience will see the full, unedited interview on CBS, and we will continue our practice of posting full transcripts and the unedited video online,” the network said. It reserved the right to make edits because of legal or national security concerns.
CBS’s parent company, Paramount, recently paid President Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit he filed over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris. The lawsuit, which many legal experts had deemed frivolous, was settled shortly before the Trump administration approved the merger of Paramount and Skydance, a Hollywood studio, which now controls CBS and has pledged to revamp its news division.
Ms. Noem reacted angrily this week after “Face the Nation” aired an edited version of her interview with Ed O’Keefe, a CBS correspondent, on Sunday’s episode. She said the network had “shamefully edited” her appearance and cut out some of her comments about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration in March.
It is standard practice in broadcast news to pretape some interviews and then edit them for clarity or time constraints. The format makes it easier for journalists to fact-check comments by a politician and to prevent them from filibustering and dodging questions.
CBS News initially defended its handling of the interview with Ms. Noem, issuing a statement that the segment “met all CBS News standards.” The full interview, which lasted 16 minutes and 40 seconds, was released online, along with a transcript; the version that aired on “Face the Nation” lasted 12 minutes and 15 seconds.
But Paramount and CBS executives began reconsidering that stance after ongoing public pressure from the Trump administration, according to two people who requested anonymity to describe internal conversations.
The Department of Homeland Security issued a formal rebuke of CBS that accused the program of leaving out key comments by Ms. Noem, including a variety of disparaging descriptions of Mr. Garcia, some of which have been disputed.
After reviewing the interview with Ms. Noem, George Cheeks, the chief executive of CBS, concluded that the network needed to take steps to ensure that a similar situation would not reoccur, the people said. He consulted with Tom Cibrowski, the president of CBS News, and the move was endorsed by David Ellison, the chief executive of Paramount.
Mr. Ellison’s handling of news coverage is under particular scrutiny. Tensions at the network over its coverage of Mr. Trump led to the resignation of the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens, who said he had lost his journalistic independence. Mr. Ellison has also been in talks for months to acquire The Free Press, an online publication that casts a skeptical eye toward traditional media outlets, and give its founder, Bari Weiss, editorial sway at CBS News.
Mr. Trump, in an interview last week with The Daily Caller, insulted the moderator of “Face the Nation,” Margaret Brennan, calling her “nasty.” His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, described her as “stupid.” CBS has not commented.
Frank Sesno, a professor at George Washington University and the former Washington bureau chief of CNN, said that the new editing policy created by CBS could increase trust in “Face the Nation.” But he said that it came with the “desperate downside” of restricting the show’s ability to focus on the most newsworthy segments of interviews to viewers.
He added that journalists should make professional editing decisions and share the unedited interviews online.
“I think it’s a bad idea on balance to lock yourself into a straitjacket of only being live,“ Mr. Sesno said. “You might want to have an hour interview with somebody, but you don’t have an hour on the show.”
Michael M. Grynbaum is a media correspondent at The Times. He is the author of “Empire of the Elite,” a cultural history of Condé Nast magazines.
Benjamin Mullin reports for The Times on the major companies behind news and entertainment. Contact him securely on Signal at +1 530-961-3223 or at [email protected].
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