In the White House Correspondents’ Association’s 111-year history, there’s
probably never been a time when the balance of power between the president and his official chroniclers has been as humiliatingly asymmetrical. While F.C.C. chairman Brendan Carr wages a blitzkrieg on the major broadcast networks, Trump and his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, have been testing their ability to run
roughshod over the press corps and its cherished traditions, with the Associated Press as their main foil and preferred piñata au courant. Meanwhile, an impotent W.H.C.A. led by Eugene Daniels, the newly anointed MSNBC weekend morning show co-host, has amassed just enough fortitude to issue a few forgettable press releases. (Yes, this would have been a better movie if Kaitlan Collins hadn’t been forced to forfeit the W.H.C.A. chair for that temp job in
New York. Sliding doors.)

On Saturday night, the W.H.C.A. will hold its annual dinner at the Hinckley Hilton. There will be no comedian—no overworked SpinCo joke is worth that level of scrutiny, I guess—nor any other bold-faced name on the dais. There will inevitably be paeans to the essential role of fearless journalism, which, along with the weekend’s many open bars, may temporarily assuage the
existential anxieties of those whose very jobs are subject to their bosses’ bosses’ ability to navigate the industry’s contraction—a challenge, it bears remembering, that they’ve previously demonstrated a jarring inability to manage.

Somewhere far from these festivities, Shari Redstone’s lawyers will be workshopping the terms of a settlement offer to the president, so as to forgo
a legal fight over Trump’s baseless election interference claim against CBS News and 60 Minutes, and thus, they hope, facilitate the sale of those storied pillars of American journalism, along with the rest of Paramount, to Larry Ellison’s son. As I reported earlier this week, lawyers for both Trump and Paramount have met with the mediator and, as The Wall Street Journal reports, will formally begin settlement negotiations next week.

In
many ways, Shari’s impending settlement has become a focal point for the political media establishment’s broader anxieties about Trump’s incursions on press freedom and its own dwindling influence. Those fears were exacerbated this week, of course, after 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens resigned after nearly four decades at the network. As he told his colleagues, he believed that he had become “the corporation’s problem.” Scott Pelley,
his close friend, similarly stressed that Owens “had no choice” in the matter. 

Several current and former network sources told me they suspect that Owens’
resignation may have been a condition of the approval, though none have any evidence to prove it. Some cited a potential parallel in Nexstar allegedly avoiding a Trump lawsuit by firing a Hill reporter. “The idea that Bill resigned on principle is ludicrous,” one said. Perhaps, but he also probably didn’t want to be micromanaged into oblivion by the current
leadership before a new set of overlords inevitably remade CBS News, potentially viewing him as an unfortunate piece of collateral damage.

Meanwhile, Shari’s attempts to exert more control over 60 Minutes have made many understandably resentful. As I’ve noted, Shari had sought greater insight into the show’s segments prior to the broadcast, and recently encouraged the reinstallment of
former CBS News president Susan Zirinsky as interim executive editor, overseeing standards across the network.

There’s some notable history here stretching back to 2018, when former 60 Minutes chief Jeff Fager was fired and both Owens and Zirinsky vied for his job. Owens won that fight, of course, and Zirinsky became CBS News president, where she lasted just two
years before being sent to a sinecure overseeing a documentary studio. In January, she was brought back into the CBS News fold as executive editor overseeing standards, which was widely perceived as an infringement on Owens’ cherished editorial freedom. Many sources now wonder whether Zirinsky will use Owens’ exit to get the 60 Minutes job she’s long coveted. Tanya Simon, the show’s executive editor (and the daughter of longtime correspondent
Bob Simon), is seen as another contender.

In any event, Owens’ exit has also set off a new wave of anxiety across the media at large. On CNN, Jake Tapper admonished Shari for bowing to “presidential pressure” in her quest to sell her company, while Matt Drudge put her on blast as the woman who “sacrificed” 60 Minutes and “destroyed CBS News.”
Inevitably, allusions to the settlement will be made at Saturday night’s dinner, as well.

But the more intriguing statements may come the following day. CBS sources told me that Pelley himself is preparing some form of commentary for this weekend’s 60 Minutes broadcast—which, depending on what he’s planning, could be a real test of both Tanya’s and CBS News C.E.O. Wendy McMahon’s leadership, chutzpah, risk tolerance, and
sheer will. It could also reveal whether Zirinsky is a Redstone shill or a battle axe—and managing this nightmare situation (the departing boss and pissed best buddie, all amid a tortured sale) with aplomb could credentialize her for the gig. It’s also a reminder to the White House that they may be able to get Shari’s money, but they can’t control her journalists.