Legendary former CBS Information anchor Dan Moderately expressed disappointment Wednesday at Paramount World‘s determination to pay $16 million to the Trump administration and settle its lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” report.

“It’s a tragic day for journalism,” Moderately informed Selection. “It’s a tragic day for ’60 Minutes’ and CBS Information. I hope folks will learn the small print of this and perceive what it was. It was distortion by the President and a kneeling down and saying, ‘sure, sir,’ by billionaire company house owners.”

Most authorized students agreed the swimsuit — through which Trump accused “60 Minutes” of deceptively modifying an interview with then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris — was frivolous and wouldn’t maintain up beneath the First Modification.

“What actually will get me about that is that Paramount didn’t should settle,” Moderately stated. “You compromise a lawsuit while you’ve completed one thing incorrect. ’60 Minutes’ did nothing incorrect. It adopted accepted journalistic practices. Attorneys virtually unanimously stated the case wouldn’t rise up in courtroom.”

Moderately expressed a full backing of his former colleagues at CBS Information and “60 Minutes”: “My help for them is complete, absolute,” he stated. “I do actually assume they fought a great battle on this, they usually’ll proceed to battle. The folks on ’60 Minutes’ and at CBS Information didn’t simply take it mendacity down. They did their finest to cease it.”

Nonetheless, he stated he wasn’t shocked by Paramount World’s settlement. The choice to strike a deal was broadly seen as a important step to receiving approval from the Trump-controlled FCC for Skydance’s $8 billion acquisition of the media conglom.

“I used to be disenchanted, however I wasn’t stunned,” he stated. “Large billionaire enterprise folks make selections about cash. We might all the time hope that they may make an exception with regards to freedom of the press, but it surely wasn’t to be.

“Trump knew if he put the strain on and threatened and simply held that they might fold, as a result of there’s an excessive amount of cash on the desk,” he added. “Trump is now forcing a complete information group to pay tens of millions of {dollars} for doing one thing protected by the Structure — which is, in fact, free and unbiased reporting. Now, you are taking right now’s sell-out. And that’s what it was: It was a sell-out to extortion by the President. Who can now say the place all this ends?”

Moderately then pointed to the bigger subject of what this implies for america as a democracy. “It has to do with not simply journalism, however extra importantly, with the nation as a complete,” he stated. “What sort of nation we’re going to have, what sort of nation we’re going to be. If main information organizations proceed to kneel earlier than energy and cease making an attempt to carry the highly effective accountable, then all of us lose.

“After which massive time legislation corporations have been settling proper and left, kneeling the identical manner,” he stated. “Large universities doing the identical. Trump is extorting what he desires out of them. Now he’s extorting what he desires out of stories organizations. So after I say, ‘The place does this go?’ What are the consequences on journalism as a complete?”

Requested what recommendation he may give the parents at CBS Information and “60 Minutes,” Moderately humbly stated it’s not his place — however that they already know “of their hearts, of their very being, the very best issues to do. I’ll say that, I do anticipate them to completely double down now on no matter nice reporting they’re allowed to do.”

In his greater than 60 years as a journalist, Moderately stated he’s by no means seen the occupation face the sort of challenges it’s now up towards. “Journalism has had its trials and tribulations earlier than, and it takes braveness to simply soldier on,” he stated. “Preserve making an attempt, maintain preventing. It takes guts to try this. And I do know the folks at CBS Information, and significantly these at ’60 Minutes,’ they’ll do their lifeless stage finest beneath these circumstances. However the query is what this improvement and the message it sends to us. And that’s what I’m making an attempt to focus on.”