Veteran sportscaster Bob Costas declared this week that the “free press is under attack” while assailing mainstream media outlets for kowtowing to Donald Trump and paying the president a “ransom,” claiming that “these are ongoing assaults” to the First Amendment.
During his speech at Monday night’s Mirror Awards in New York City, where he received the Fred Dressler Leadership Award for making “distinct, consistent and unique contributions to the public's understanding of the media,” Costas took the opportunity to call out ABC News for capitulating to the president.
Shortly after Trump won the 2024 election, ABC’s parent company Disney decided to settle the president’s defamation lawsuit against the news network and anchor George Stephanopoulos for $15 million. Trump claimed that he was defamed when Stephanopoulos said in an interview that the president had been found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll, when a jury instead found Trump liable for sexually abusing her.
“All they should’ve said was, ‘George misspoke. The president, that paragon of virtue, was only found guilty of sexual assault, not rape. So we stand corrected.' They didn’t have to pay a $15 million ransom,” the 12-time Olympic host declared.
He also took issue with Shari Redstone, the chief shareholder of CBS News’ parent company Paramount Global. With Redstone standing to make billions of dollars in a merger with Skydance Media, she has pushed the company to agree to settle Trump’s lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, which legal experts have deemed frivolous and the news channel has said is “completely without merit.”
In recent months, 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens and CBS News chief Wendy McMahon – who both said they would not apologize for the interview – have resigned amid internal tensions over the pending settlement. The conglomerate’s board has already offered Trump a $15 million settlement, which the president has rejected as he’s reportedly demanding at least $25 million (plus $25 million in free airtime) along with an apology.
“And did Shari Redstone, because she wants to affect a merger that Trump’s FCC can stand in the way of, did she have to besmirch and undercut the gold standard in our lifetime of broadcast journalism – 60 Minutes? Paying $20 million in ransom to Trump is just the cost of doing business when there are billions of dollars at stake,” Costas sighed. “These are ongoing assaults on the basic idea of a free press.”
Throughout the rest of his speech, which was captured on video by journalist Rachel Sklar, Costas bemoaned that the Trump administration was engaging in a full-fledged war against the media.
“The free press is under attack. Democracy as we know it is under attack,” he noted.
At the same time, he scolded news organizations for seemingly bending the knee to the president and presenting “both-sides” coverage in an effort to appease Trump and his supporters.
“But if the answer to that is MAGA media, if the answer to that is Donald Trump’s view of the world, which is only through a prism of what benefits him, there are no higher ideals,” he stated. “There are no principles at work other than what benefits him. I’ll stay with where we are without correction if the correction is what Donald Trump represents.”
Costas added that due to Trump having “been normalized,” everything the president does or says forces “responsible journalists” to “have to pretend that there’s always two sides to this,” prompting him to criticize CNN, a network he joined as a contributor in 2020.
“There really isn’t two sides to much of what Donald Trump represents,” he said. “And the idea that you have to find somebody who will not just defend Donald Trump but valorize it, even on CNN or wherever else, just in the name of being balanced – look, if someone is contending that the Earth is flat in order to appear objective, you are not required to say ‘well, maybe it might be oblong.’ No, it’s not!”
After observing that the president “has absolutely no regard” for “basic American principles and basic common decency”, the legendary play-by-play announcer ended his remarks by relaying how fans of his have turned on him over his recent outspokenness on politics.
“And of course, when I did that, every good thing I did for 40 years was washed away,” he concluded. “Now I suck. You know what? If that’s what you think, and that’s how you think, and you think it in defense of that guy, I wear that as a badge of honor.”
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