Bob Costas Denounces Mainstream Media For Folding To Trump
By: HuffPost
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
He's won 29 Emmy Awards, and he's pretty damn tired of the media's false "bothsidesing" that normalizes President Donald Trump to the detriment of basic American principles.
He's Bob Costas.
Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications awarded the legendary sportscaster its Fred Dressler Leadership Award Monday night, and Costas, always one to play it straight, used his acceptance speech to call out Trump ― and coverage of the president by ABC, CBS and CNN.
"The free press is under attack," Costas said while accepting the lifetime achievement award. "Democracy as we know it is under attack."
In December, ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to Donald Trump's presidential library to settle a defamation suit over George Stephanopoulos' saying Trump had been found liable for raping E. Jean Carroll when he was technically liable for sexual abuse.
Costas slammed ABC for folding to Trump.
"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,'" Costas told the audience in comments relayed by Mediaite. "They didn't have to pay a $15 million ransom."
(The judge in the case also said the verdict didn't mean that Caroll "failed to prove that Mr. Trump 'raped' her as many people commonly understand the word 'rape.' Indeed ... the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.")
Costas also took aim at CBS for attempting to settle a Trump lawsuit that First Amendment experts have called "frivolous and dangerous."
The president sued CBS's parent company, Paramount, for $20 billion because he believed a "60 Minutes" interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris was deceptively edited... and it also made him sad.
Paramount is pursuing an $8 billion merger with Skydance Media, which requires the approval of Trump's Federal Communications Commission appointee Brendan Carr.
"Paying $20 million in ransom to Trump is just the cost of doing business when there's billions of dollars at stake," Costas lamented. "These are ongoing assaults on the basic idea of a free press."
He then called out the false balance that other outlets seek when they report on Trump:
Because he is the president, to a certain extent, who he is and what he does, and what is done in his name, has been normalized so that responsible journalists have to pretend that there's always two sides to this. There really isn't two sides to much of what Donald Trump represents.
If someone says - 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.
Certain things are just true. And regrettably, something that's true in America right now is that the President of the United States has absolutely no regard, and in fact has contempt, for basic American principles and basic common decency.
Anticipating attacks from fans of his who say they no longer value his opinion since "he turned political," Costas was ready.
"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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Bob Costas Condemns Mainstream Press for Doing ‘MAGA Media’
Michael Luciano 4-5 minutes 6/10/2025
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
Legendary sportscaster Bob Costas criticized the media over its handling of President Donald Trump’s second term during an awards ceremony on Monday night.
Costas took several major media organizations to task at this year’s Mirror Awards in New York. At the ceremony, hosted by Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, Costas received the Fred Dressler Leadership Award for making “distinct, consistent and unique contributions to the public’s understanding of the media.”
In a speech touching on his career in broadcasting and the state of the media business through the years, Costas spoke candidly about the press in the Trump era, and singled out ABC News, CBS News, and CNN.
He slammed ABC News for settling a lawsuit for $15 million after the president sued the outlet for defamation stemming from comments by ABC This Week host George Stephanopoulos .
“Judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape and for defaming the victim of that rape,” Stephanopoulos said on the show in March 2024. A jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting writer E. Jean Carroll , but did not find him liable for rape.
“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,'” Costas said of the decision to settle. “They didn’t have to pay a $15 million ransom.”
Next, Costas condemned Paramount, which is controlled by Shari Redstone , for its attempts to settle another Trump suit that legal experts have widely dismissed as frivolous. Trump rejected Paramount’s offer of $15 million to settle. Paramount is looking to merge with Skydance Media in a move that would require the approval of Trump’s Federal Communications Commission. In April, longtime 60 Minutes producer Bill Owens resigned and said in a memo to staff that the program no longer enjoyed editorial independence from the corporate side.
“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 ?” Costas continued. “Paying $20 million in ransom to Trump is just the cost of doing business when there’s billions of dollars at stake. These are ongoing assaults on the basic idea of a free press.”
Costas went on to acknowledge that media organizations make mistakes and have “blindspots and misplaced narratives,” though he added a caveat and took a swipe at CNN: