“CBS Evening News” Alum Katie Couric Says Network's 'Both Sides' Pivot Under Trump Comes Across as a 'Cop Out'

Couric called CBS News' $16 million settlement with Trump over its '60 Minutes' interview with Kamala Harris "deplorable" and "incredibly disappointing"

NEED TO KNOW

• CBS Evening News alum Katie Couric slammed her former network’s “both sides” approach to the Trump administration as new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss looks to attract a middle-ground audience
• She described the present-day media landscape as “balkanized” and bemoaned CBS’ decision to pay a $16 million settlement to the president over what she called a “specious lawsuit”
• Couric posited that independent media might provide better safeguards against retaliation from the Trump administration than major media corporations worried about profits and angering the president

Former CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric slammed her old network’s “both sides” approach to the Trump administration under new leadership as the wrong type of "solution."

The longtime Today host and news anchor, who now runs her own independent media company, spoke to Variety for the 20th anniversary of her taking the flagship anchor job at CBS, offering her perspective on the media landscape and CBS News specifically under recently installed editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and a new parent company that's friendly to President Donald Trump.

“You saw CBS, for example, do a 16-second read on [the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol], basically giving the Trump view of January 6 and the Democratic view of January 6. I think for a lot of viewers, they see that as a cop out,” Couric, 69, said in the interview. “Similarly, yes, some people think the election was rigged, and yet, are newscasts supposed to say these people believe the election was rigged despite absolutely zero evidence supporting that?”

“I think we have entered a new era of not only facts, but context and perspective and to repeat things that aren’t true, hoping this to appear unbiased is not the solution,” Couric added.

She described the present-day media landscape as “balkanized” and bemoaned CBS’ decision to pay a $16 million settlement to the president over what she called a “specious lawsuit” centered on the editing of 60 Minutes’ interview with Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 campaign.

60 Minutes, which Couric used to contribute to, has been at the center of the turmoil at CBS News as parent company Paramount successfully pursued a merger with Skydance Media and its Trump-aligned CEO, David Ellison.

“That was obviously because they wanted the [Paramount/Skydance] merger to go through, and it was so obvious,” Couric said of the settlement. “That, to me, is a real issue in media today, and I found that really deplorable. That level of capitulation was just incredibly disappointing to me.”

“There has been this really dangerous merging of profits and journalism, which I think doesn’t serve the public well,” she added, later criticizing Ellison for “throwing a dinner party honoring Donald Trump as part of the White House Correspondents' Dinner. That’s pretty messy.”

Couric posited that independent media might provide better safeguards against retaliation from the Trump administration — which has repeatedly leveraged the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) against critical media members and organizations — than major media corporations that are worried about profits and angering the president.

While former CNN anchor Don Lemon, who now operates an independent news operation, was charged with federal crimes for covering an anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protest, Couric argued that Lemon’s ability to operate outside a corporate media ecosystem give him the flexibility to pursue coverage that might otherwise have been scuttled by bosses at a major news outlet.

“I think some of these moves to intimidate or silence reporters, they’re just not very effective — unless you work for a big corporation,” Couric said. “If you’re in a vulnerable position where the ramifications could hurt you financially, I think you pay a lot more attention to that kind of pressure.”

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The journalist conceded that CBS “was in desperate need of modernizing,” something she says she advocated for during her tenure from 2006 to 2011, “but this kind of middle-ground audience — I just don’t know what will happen to that with that sort of approach.”

And she sounded the alarm about another potential merger, this time between the newly formed Paramount Skydance Corporation and Warner Bros., which owns CNN.

“If CNN and CBS merge, they’re going to have fewer people, probably,” Couric said. “If somehow they’re pooling their resources, they’re going to need fewer people doing news, which isn’t great for journalists who care about the world and want to be a part of it. They’re going to cut jobs, most likely.”

Nearly five decades into her journalism career, Couric also celebrated some of the other benefits of being an independent reporter at this point in her career.

“I feel lucky that I’m an independent journalist, and when there’s something that deserves a certain amount of time and a conversation of a certain length, I’m able to do it,” she told Variety. “I don’t have to cut to a commercial for adult diapers or Preparation H.”

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