A Dark Moment for Journalism — and Devastation in Texas

Summary

The Daily: A Dark Moment for Journalism — and Devastation in Texas

Episode Release Date: July 7, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of The Daily by The New York Times, hosts Rachel Abrams and David Enrich delve into two critical stories: the devastating flash floods in Texas and a significant legal battle between CBS News and former President Donald Trump. Additionally, the episode features an insightful interview with esteemed journalist Lowell Bergman, drawing parallels between past and present challenges faced by journalism.

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Catastrophic Floods Devastate Texas

Unprecedented Disaster in Kerr County

At the outset, Rachel Abrams reports on a catastrophic flood emergency in Kerr County, Texas. Within hours, a month's worth of torrential rain transformed the region, resulting in flash flooding that has tragically killed at least 80 people, with dozens still missing as of Sunday afternoon.

Personal Stories Amidst the Tragedy

The narrative intensifies as Abrams introduces personal accounts, notably that of Brian Eads, who endured the nightmare alongside his wife at Camp Mystic, a summer camp located along the Guadalupe River.

• Brian Eads' Ordeal (02:23 - 04:26):

  "Between 3 and 4 o' clock in the morning, the entire RV parked was just a torrential flood." – Brian Eads [02:23]

Eads recounts the harrowing experience of being swept away by raging waters, the desperate attempts to save his wife, and the unimaginable loss he faced.

On-the-Ground Insights

Rachel Abrams speaks with Edgar Sandoval, a colleague on the ground in Kerrville, Texas, providing a vivid depiction of the disaster's aftermath.

• Edgar Sandoval on the Scene (01:38 - 06:46):

  "The scene was just out of a war zone. You could see just hours later after the rain started that it had taken entire neighborhoods. Ent houses were gone, there were smashed trees everywhere." – Edgar Sandoval [01:38]

Sandoval highlights the suddenness and ferocity of the flood, emphasizing the area's nickname, "Flash Flood Valley," and the inadequate time residents had to respond to the emergency warnings.

Questions and Reflections

Abrams probes deeper into the response to the flood:

• Question on Warnings and Evacuations (05:24 - 06:07):

  "Can you talk a little bit more about the kind of warnings that went out before these floods began? Like, why does it seem like they did not come in time?" – Rachel Abrams [05:24]

Sandoval explains that warnings were issued around 4-5 AM, but many residents only took evacuation seriously once the water reached their floors, leaving little time to escape.

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CBS News vs. Donald Trump: A Battle Over Journalistic Integrity

The Lawsuit Explained

Transitioning from the tragedy in Texas, Rachel Abrams introduces a contentious legal settlement where CBS News agreed to pay former President Donald Trump $16 million. This settlement arose from Trump's allegations that CBS had deceptively edited an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris to portray her more favorably.

• David Enrich on the Lawsuit (08:10 - 10:16):

  "The lawsuit is about an allegation by Trump that CBS, when it aired an interview with Kamala Harris last October, deceptively edited it in a way that was designed to make Kamala Harris sound a lot better than she really did." – David Enrich [08:10]

Enrich details the specifics of the lawsuit, noting that Trump contends the edited interview influenced Texas voters against him, a claim regarded by many as weak and unsubstantiated.

Legal and Corporate Dynamics

Former CBS producer Lowell Bergman joins the discussion, drawing historical parallels to past challenges faced by CBS.

• Lowell Bergman on the Settlement (10:16 - 14:31):

  "What they did with her, I believe, is the biggest scandal in broadcast history." – Lowell Bergman [10:16]

Bergman criticizes CBS's handling of the situation, likening it to previous instances where corporate interests overshadowed journalistic integrity, such as during his involvement with the tobacco industry's legal battles depicted in the movie The Insider.

Parallels to "The Insider" and Past Compromises

Bergman recounts his own experience at CBS, where a significant story on the tobacco industry's deceptive practices was suppressed due to legal threats, leading to compromised journalistic standards.

• Bergman's Account of Suppressed Journalism (25:26 - 31:03):

  "All news organizations have the limits as to what they will publish or push out... The ownership of stations by major corporate conglomerates was in the background here." – Lowell Bergman [29:08]

He emphasizes how corporate ownership influenced CBS's decision to prioritize legal safety over groundbreaking journalism, drawing a direct line to the current settlement with Trump.

Implications for the Future of Journalism

The conversation shifts to the broader implications of such settlements on media independence and the potential for increased self-censorship within news organizations.

• Concerns About Media Independence (16:09 - 18:45):

  "This is going to set a precedent both internally at CBS, but for the broader news media in general." – Lowell Bergman [16:09]

Bergman warns that legal pressures from powerful figures like Trump may lead news organizations to avoid controversial stories, fearing costly lawsuits and corporate retribution.

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Lowell Bergman’s In-Depth Interview

In a pivotal segment, Rachel Abrams interviews Lowell Bergman, whose experiences mirror the current crisis facing CBS. Bergman shares his firsthand account of journalistic compromises and the impact of corporate and legal pressures.

Bergman's Story of the Suppressed Tobacco Investigation

Bergman details how his investigative work on the tobacco industry's deceptive practices was halted by CBS management to avoid expensive litigation.

• Details of the Suppressed Story (27:17 - 31:18):

  "I decided to fight using any means necessary that I could gather to reverse what had happened. I promised myself I would get out the story of what did happen because this is information about the public health." – Lowell Bergman [27:35]

He recounts the internal battle between journalistic integrity and corporate safety, ultimately leading to the suppression of a critical public health story.

Comparison to Current Events

Bergman draws a stark comparison between his past experiences and the current settlement, suggesting that the situation with CBS and Trump is not only similar but potentially more damaging.

• Bergman on Current Settlement vs. Past (31:03 - 33:58):

  "We are at a really grim moment when absurd lawsuits and huge amounts of money come together to damage the public interest. So I would say you got to be a little bit depressed about what the future holds." – Lowell Bergman [31:17]

He expresses deep concern over the potential erosion of journalistic standards and the increasing influence of powerful entities over news organizations.

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Conclusion: A Grim Outlook for Journalism

The episode culminates with a sobering outlook on the state of journalism. Bergman's reflections underscore the precarious balance between maintaining journalistic integrity and navigating corporate and legal pressures. The settlement between CBS and Trump serves as a cautionary tale of how external forces can undermine the foundational principles of free and independent media.

Key Takeaways:

• The Texas floods highlight the vulnerability of communities to sudden natural disasters and the critical importance of timely and effective emergency responses.
• The CBS-Trump legal battle exemplifies the ongoing struggle between media organizations and powerful figures, raising significant concerns about the future independence of journalism.
• Lowell Bergman's experiences provide a historical context that illuminates the persistent challenges faced by journalists in upholding truth against corporate and legal pressures.

As the episode closes, listeners are left to ponder the implications of these events on the broader landscape of news reporting and the essential role of a free press in a democratic society.

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This summary captures the essence of the episode, highlighting the key discussions, personal stories, and critical insights shared by the hosts and guest speakers. Notable quotes with timestamps are integrated to provide depth and context, ensuring an engaging and comprehensive overview for those who haven't listened to the episode.

Transcript

[Rachel Abrams]

Austin I'm Austin Mitchell and for the past couple years my colleague Azin Ghreshi and I have been reporting on the story of medical care for transgender kids. Where it came from, the lives it changed, how it became a protocol that spread around the world, and how the politics and a Supreme Court legal fight now threaten its existence. You can hear that story on the Protocol, a new six part series from the New York Times.

[David Enrich]

Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Rachel Abrams]

Hey everybody, it's Rachel. Before we begin today's show, we wanted to bring you the latest from central Texas.

[David Enrich]

In Texas tonight, a catastrophic flood emergency.

[Rachel Abrams]

Month's worth of torrential rain fell in just a few hours in Kerr county where flash flooding has killed at least 80 people as of Sunday afternoon, dozens are still missing.

[Lowell Bergman]

The desperate search for the missing after deadly flash floods in Texas has become a race against time.

[Rachel Abrams]

Among those missing, a number of youth camps dot the area, including camp mystic are 10 girls from a summer camp along the Guadalupe river.

[Lowell Bergman]

We will remain 100% dedicated, searching for.

[David Enrich]

Every single one of the children who.

[Lowell Bergman]

Were at Camp mystic as well as.

[Edgar Sandoval]

Anybody else and the entire riverbed to.

[Lowell Bergman]

Make sure that they're going to be recovered.

[Rachel Abrams]

I called our colleague Edgar Sandoval, who's on the ground there to help us understand what happened. So, Edgar, it's four o'clock on Sunday afternoon. Can you just tell us where are you and what is the scene like there?

[Edgar Sandoval]

Right now I'm in Kerrville, Texas. I came here as soon as I heard that the floods have devastated the parts of the community and the scene was just out of a war zone. You could see just hours later after the rain started that it had taken entire neighborhoods. Ent houses were gone, there were smashed trees everywhere. The roads were just broken in many parts. And my first stop was at a shelter in Kerrville. And the first man I saw was a man by the name of Brian Eads. He was wrapped in a blanket and trying to light up a cigarette and he started to recount to me the ordeal that he went through just a few hours earlier.

[Brian Eads]

Between 3 and 4 o' clock in the morning, the entire RV parked was just a torrential fly.

[Edgar Sandoval]

Do you live alone there?

[Brian Eads]

No, I was with my wife. I have no idea if she's.

[Edgar Sandoval]

He told me that him and his wife were sleeping in an RV park near the Guadalupe River.

[Brian Eads]

And then I looked outside and seen how bad it was. So I woke up my wife for us to get out.

[Edgar Sandoval]

They failed. These raging waters just coming seemingly out of nowhere.

[Brian Eads]

We got out of the rv trying to make it to my truck. We got swept away. Made it to another truck.

[Edgar Sandoval]

Oh, wow. They got into a neighbor's truck, the three of them, they were trying to drive away.

[Brian Eads]

We went about 20ft and this truck died. And then we just got swept away.

[Edgar Sandoval]

The water really overwhelmed that truck as well.

[Lowell Bergman]

Wow.

[Brian Eads]

I just tried to keep my wife in the back of the truck to protect us from all the stuff that was floating. Just. I mean, it was just dropping rental. And then we got pushed out of the back of the truck. We both went underwater.

[Edgar Sandoval]

You and your wife?

[Brian Eads]

Yeah, me and my wife. I. She got ripped out of my arms. And I came up and I heard her, and she wasn't that far away from me, so I tried to swim to her. And then I got hit in the back of the head and got taken down by more debris.

[Lowell Bergman]

Oh, my God.

[Brian Eads]

Did a couple of tumbles underwater. I came up and I couldn't hear her no more. And I finally ran into a tree, and I wrapped myself around the tree.

[Edgar Sandoval]

He swam to shore, and he was just hoping that she grabbed into a tree or some sort of large debris or a piece of refrigerator.

[Brian Eads]

So I have no idea what happened to my wife.

[Edgar Sandoval]

And hours later, he was just desperately looking for her. You don't have a picture? Your phone is not with you?

[Brian Eads]

No, I have nothing. I have no wallet, no nothing. These cigarettes, somebody that was here earlier gave them to.

[Edgar Sandoval]

But sadly, later on Friday morning, he was told that she did not make it and had passed away.

[Rachel Abrams]

That is a really awful story, and I cannot even imagine how devastated that must be for him and for the community. I think one question on everybody's minds right now is how did an overnight rainstorm kill so many people so quickly?

[Edgar Sandoval]

I mean, that's the question everyone is asking. This area is called Flash Flood Valley, but the water really came out of nowhere. And in the span of a few hours, from 4 in the morning to about 6 in the morning, got the amount of water they would see in months. So people didn't really have time to get out.

[Rachel Abrams]

Can you talk a little bit more about the kind of warnings that went out before these floods began? Like, why does it seem like they did not come in time?

[Edgar Sandoval]

Well, I spoke to many residents who began receiving the warnings, like around 4 or 5 in the morning, and a lot of them tell me that at first they didn't really make much of them, and they only started leaving their homes and their RV trucks when the water reached their floors, and that's when they had to escape. And, you know, save their lives.

[Rachel Abrams]

I think there's going to be a lot of debate in the coming days about who knew what, when, what could have been done differently? Could people have been warned and evacuated faster? I know we don't have a lot of answers to those questions now, but just as a reporter on the ground there, seeing what you're seeing, talking to everybody, what has struck you about what you've witnessed and this particular tragedy?

[Edgar Sandoval]

I live not far from here, and I've never seen anything like this. I grew up along the border, which is also known for its fair share of flash warnings and floods. But this is just beyond what anyone has experienced in their lifetimes here. I think the authorities are not really trying to answer that question as well. Every time they're pressed on it, they keep telling us, the media, to just focus on who's hurting right now and finding the survivors, and they're gonna, quote, unquote, deal with this later. But I think that's the question everyone desperately trying to answer at the same time as they try to find their loved ones.

[Rachel Abrams]

Edgar, thank you so much.

[Edgar Sandoval]

Thank you for having me.

[Rachel Abrams]

Okay, here's today's show from the New York Times. I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is the Daily. Last week, when Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, announced a $16 million settlement to President Trump, many of the network's journalists were furious. The deal also raised questions about the independence of CBS's journalism and how much news organizations could be cowed by threats from the president going forward. Today, my colleague David Enrich takes us inside, and former CBS producer Lowell Bergman reminds us that CBS has been in this situation before and explains why he thinks that this time is different. It's Monday, July 7th. You ready for us?

[David Enrich]

I'm gonna spit up my gum.

[Rachel Abrams]

You came in here with gum?

[David Enrich]

I almost came in here with martinis.

[Rachel Abrams]

Okay, well, thank you for making time for us. Since you are on deadline and still reporting this out. David, let's start off with just explaining to us what this lawsuit was about.

[David Enrich]

Well, the lawsuit is about an allegation by Trump that cbs, when it aired an interview with Kamala Harris last October, deceptively edited it in a way that was designed to make Kamala Harris sound a lot better than she really did. Harris had a reputation on the campaign trail for not being always the most concise or articulate public speaker.

[Rachel Abrams]

And for a special election edition of 60 Minutes that will air Monday, our Bill Whitaker sat down with Vice President Harris and asked.

[David Enrich]

CBS recorded this interview for 60 Minutes, but they teased the interview a day earlier on another program.

[Lowell Bergman]

Does the US have no sway over Prime Minister Netanyahu?

[Rachel Abrams]

The aid that we have given Israel allowed Israel to defend itself against 200 ballistic missiles that were just meant to attack the Israelis and the people of Israel.

[David Enrich]

And on that other program, Face the Nation, the answer that Harris gave was different than what CBS on 60 Minutes the following evening showed.

[Lowell Bergman]

Does the US have no sway over Prime Minister Netanyahu?

[Rachel Abrams]

The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles.

[David Enrich]

But it seems that it was shorter and just slightly different. And it was edited the way things on radio and TV are usually edited to not bore viewers to death by giving a whole long answer to something you know, we now know. You can look back at the transcript and you can see that they basically took the first half or first two thirds of her answer, used that on Face the Nation, and then 24 hours later used the final third of it on 60 Minutes. And 60 Minutes was just caught editing Kamala Harris interview to make her answers look better. It immediately led to a bunch of conspiracy theories on social media on the right.

[Lowell Bergman]

What they did was put out this version with the word salad about Israel first saw the negative reaction, and say, you know what, on tv, that's not going to do good. So let's just change the answer altogether.

[David Enrich]

That CBS was kind of hiding what Kamala Harris had actually said or trying to clean up her words to make her sound better. And it was a conspiracy theory that Trump and his allies really deliberately fed.

[Lowell Bergman]

What they did with her, I believe, is the biggest scandal in broadcast history.

[David Enrich]

I do. And, you know, it culminated four days before the election with this lawsuit. It's frankly a pretty tortured legal argument that he's making. The lawsuit was filed in Texas, and he is claiming that viewers of 60 Minutes in Texas who watched this basically walked away with the impression that Harris sounded a lot more articulate than she did and that that persuaded an untold number of Texas voters, a state he won, a state he won handily, that they nonetheless voted for Harris instead of Trump as a result of this allegedly doctored interview. That's a kind of a tenuous argument. There's no evidence to support it actually being true.

[Rachel Abrams]

Okay, so basically you're saying this is like a very weak case, in other words.

[David Enrich]

Yeah. And I've been focusing on these types of lawsuits for a couple of years now in my job, and this is one of the weakest I think, that I have seen.

[Rachel Abrams]

Okay, so Trump files the lawsuit right before the election. The idea was that if Harris ended up winning, then 60 Minutes would have intentionally helped her to do so, to the detriment of candidate Trump. But obviously, that did not happen because he won. So I don't understand how is he still claiming that he's somehow hurt by this?

[David Enrich]

And Trump's goal here was broader. Since the moment he started campaigning for president in 2015, a central part of his shtick has been bashing the media, sowing distrust in the media. And he viewed this lawsuit and his allies viewed this lawsuit as a really powerful weapon to keep beating the media with and to beat CBS over the head with. And also, I think, is designed to a certain extent to send a message to not just cbs, but the mainstream media in general that Trump is not going to just stand by and get criticized in the media. He is going to fight back as aggressively as he can. And so instead of walking away from the lawsuit, as you might have expected, he not only continued pursuing the lawsuit, but he expanded it. He no longer was asking for $10 billion in damages. He doubled that to $20 billion. He added more plaintiffs. They were really going full steam on this.

[Rachel Abrams]

So the idea here is that it's a super weak case that he's pursuing, not because he might actually win any monetary damages, but for all these other reasons you just articulated.

[David Enrich]

Yeah, and there's one other that I haven't articulated, which is that the moment he won the election, I think he sensed that he had an added source of leverage against CBS in particular, which was that CBS's parent company, Paramount, which is controlled by Sherry Redstone, was in the process of trying to merge with another company, Skydance, and these two huge entertainment companies, they needed the federal government's approval to complete their merger. And Trump was about to take over the federal government. And so he and his administration, in theory, would have the power to either approve or reject that merger. And it was going to be very much in the interests of CBS's parent company to have a relationship with Trump that was sufficiently positive that that would not stand in the way of this multi billion dollar merger going through.

[Rachel Abrams]

So basically, he feels like there's going to be another reason for them to capitulate, which it seems like they did.

[David Enrich]

That's exactly right. And that is ultimately what happened. Trump's instincts, I think, were right. Paramount comes to the negotiating table and to, I think, the surprise and frustration of a lot of CBS employees, agrees to negotiate and now has agreed to pay $16 million to Trump, his lawyers, his future foundation CBS has also agreed as part of the settlement to in the future, when 60 Minutes interviews presidential candidates, they will release full, unedited transcripts afterwards.

[Rachel Abrams]

Is that unusual?

[David Enrich]

CBS hasn't done it in the past. And I think that's a pretty easy concession for them to make because it's clearly for the sake of transparency.

[Rachel Abrams]

The transparency thing makes sense to me because it is spiritually aligned with the mission of a journalistic organization. But the overarching story here is one of CBS capitulating as part of a lawsuit that nobody thought had any merit. And so I'm curious what the reaction has been inside of CBS as all of this has been going on for the last few months.

[David Enrich]

Saying they're upset would be a real understatement.

[Lowell Bergman]

Our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack.

[David Enrich]

The reaction has been really apoplectic.

[Lowell Bergman]

In tonight's last minute, a note on Bill Owens, who until this past week was executive producer of 60 Minutes.

[David Enrich]

You've already seen some top journalists at 60 Minutes either leave like Bill Owens did.

[Lowell Bergman]

Bill resigned Tuesday. It was hard on him and hard on us, but he did it for us.

[David Enrich]

And you, or speak out against these settlement negotiations like Scott Pelley and Lesley Stahl, have to have a news organization.

[Rachel Abrams]

Told by a corporation, do this, do that with your story, change this, change that, don't run that piece. I mean, it steps on the First Amendment. It steps on the freedom of the press.

[David Enrich]

And one of the things that they are especially worried about is that this is going to set a precedent both internally at CBS, but for the broader news media in general.

[Rachel Abrams]

I'm not optimistic. I am not. I'm pessimistic. I'm pessimistic about the future for all.

[David Enrich]

Press today, that there is a very clear playbook for people like Trump when they are unhappy with coverage or just want to cause trouble internally at these news organizations that they can file lawsuits that stand very little chance of succeeding in court and that their companies are going to rush to the negotiating table and agree to pay millions of dollars. And the next step, the logical next step, is that companies do not like paying millions of dollars in settlements. And so the kind of rational thing to do in that case is to stop writing things, publishing things, airing things that are going to upset the president because you want to avoid getting these types of frivolous lawsuits being filed in the first place. And you talk to people at CBS right now, people who are there or have recently left, and they've already seen what they think are some signs that CBS is going to be less willing to take journalistic risks and go after the richest, most powerful people in institutions on the planet because they are worried about the legal blowback from this.

[Rachel Abrams]

Can you describe a few examples of.

[David Enrich]

The signs that they've seen at 60 Minutes? There was a segment that was due to air on the IRS and the cuts that the Trump administration is making to the irs that got postponed by months. Now, CBS people say that that was a normal journalistic decision, and it may well have been, but that did not stop the concerns from being raised internally that this was part of an effort to kind of appease the Trump administration. And certainly on the Trump side and the people I talked to there interpreted it that way. They basically thumped their chest when they heard about this and saw it as an indication that their pressure tactics were working and that by doing all this legal saber rattling, by filing this lawsuit, by driving a tough negotiating stance, that they could strongly influence the appetite that a storied institution like CBS would have to pursue. Hard hitting, aggressive investigative journalism.

[Rachel Abrams]

Right. And even if you don't know for certain that a story is being killed, I imagine if you work at cbs, it's just a cloud hanging over you about why every decision being made.

[David Enrich]

And wouldn't it be easier to just shy away from that really hard story or just dial it back a little bit if that will make it easier for your story to air? And it's that kind of infectious self censorship that I think a lot of people at CBS and in the broader news industry are really worried that it's going to take hold. And I think based on my reporting, that that's exactly what Trump and his allies are hoping will happen.

[Rachel Abrams]

We should mention though, at least CBS is saying that of course that this will not change their news standards. But what you are saying is that there are signs that that is just not true. Or at least people within CBS have reason to be suspicious already.

[David Enrich]

I think they have good reason to be suspicious. And look, I've been reporting on these types of legal threats and legal actions in the news industry across the US and it's the same pattern over and over again. Organizations reach settlements or deals, they back down. And the line that they say is that this is just about being able to move on. And I think it's not surprising to see why. It's because when you see how expensive it is to defend against these lawsuits, whether you're settling them or not, the rational thing to do is to try to avoid situations where you're going to face intense legal blowback.

[Rachel Abrams]

I have to note that all of what you just described sounds a lot like the plot of a movie. In fact, it is the plot of a movie.

[Lowell Bergman]

An insider ready to speak the truth.

[Rachel Abrams]

The movie is called the Insider. It came out in the 90s.

[Lowell Bergman]

A reporter who will help him reveal it.

[Rachel Abrams]

And it is about Lowell Bergman, a journalist at CBS 60 Minutes who basically gets his story killed because of the interest of his corporate parent.

[Lowell Bergman]

We'll pin you to your seat. The best film of the year, nominated.

[Rachel Abrams]

For five golden have you seen this movie?

[David Enrich]

I love that movie and I agree. History sometimes repeats itself. And there's, there are a lot of indications here that what CBS is doing right now to appease Trump and get a deal done for its corporate parent is a repeat of what happened in the Insider with the tobacco coverage and Lowell Bergman's story decades earlier.

[Rachel Abrams]

What would you say if I told you that we were going to talk to Lowell Bergman in the second half of this episode?

[David Enrich]

I would say tell him I'm a huge fan.

[Rachel Abrams]

David Enrich, thank you so much.

[David Enrich]

Thanks for having me.

[Rachel Abrams]

After the break. LOL Bergman, we'll be right back.

[Thomas Gibsonoff]

My name is Thomas Gibsonoff. I'm a journalist at the New York Times. I served in the Marine Corps as an infantryman. When it comes to reporting on the front line, a lot of the same basics are at play. You're looking at the map of where you're going. If you're on a paved road, field roads, is there a hospital nearby? Is your body armor affixed with the first aid kit? Does everyone know where that first aid kit is? We arrive into a military position. I get out of the car. I look at my watch, you know, I set a timer. No more than an hour. I'm listening for drones, jets. Check in with the team. Is everyone comfortable? And if they are, then we proceed. Frontline reporting is dangerous, but I think nothing is more important than talking to the people involved, you know, hearing their stories and being able to connect that with people thousands of miles away. Anything that can make something like this more personal I think is well worth the risk. New York Times subscribers make it possible for us to keep doing this vital coverage. If you'd like to subscribe, you can do [e-mail] subscribe.

[Rachel Abrams]

Lowell Bergman, it is such an honor to have you here. I'm actually just interviewing you to make Michael Barbaro jealous because he just referred to you as the greatest television news producer of all time.

[Lowell Bergman]

Send money.

[Rachel Abrams]

Well, hello. Welcome to the Daily lol. We are talking to you on the heels of this huge settlement that came down on Tuesday night for $16 million. And before we get into the guts of it, I want to hear what was your reaction when you heard this news?

[Lowell Bergman]

Well, I think we all expected a settlement. I suppose the question was the dollar amount. Paramount was going to do something to pay off Donald Trump in order to get the merger so Ms. Redstone could get her money. That seemed to be written in stone that that was something was going to happen like that for 60 minutes. I think for those of us in journalism, it didn't matter how much money it was one way or another.

[Rachel Abrams]

I imagine this kind of capitulation from Paramount feels slightly familiar to you, at least thematically, because this gets why we really wanted to talk to you, which is that I recently watched the Insider at the suggestion of my colleague Michael Barbaro, because he said that this situation with CBS is exactly like the Insider. And I said, what's the Insider? And I watched it.

[Brian Eads]

My name is Lowell Bergman.

[Lowell Bergman]

No, Bergman. B E R G G M A N. I'm a producer with 60 Minutes.

[Rachel Abrams]

And of course, this is the film where Al Pacino plays you when you were a producer at cbs.

[Lowell Bergman]

Is it newsworthy? Yes. Are we gonna air it? Of course not. Why?

[Rachel Abrams]

And I was so struck by some of the similarities.

[Lowell Bergman]

You won't be satisfied unless you're putting the company in ring. What are you? Are you a businessman or are you a newsman? Because that.

[Rachel Abrams]

And so I would like to ask you, could you tell me the story of what happened when you were there at CBS?

[Lowell Bergman]

In my case, I was a producer at 60 Minutes for, at that time, about 12 years. How the medical establishment found out what AIDS was and had enjoyed the backing of the company of what he calls drug trafficking by the CIA in partnership with the Venezuelan national, and had done a number of stories all around the world. Seldom do Western reporters get a chance, as we did last week, to go behind the barricades that separate the rest of Beirut. Some of them were honored with awards. But at the same time, it was a job that I was really deep into. And in the course of doing that, I was notified by a source that there was someone inside the tobacco industry who had been a senior executive in a company willing to talk. That had never happened. And I cultivated this source with the full knowledge of the company, with the legal department, because in those days, the tobacco industry was spending $600 million a year on litigation trying to keep the untruth that tobacco wasn't addictive, that it wasn't damaging the public health. And CBS had previously been sued by Brown and Williams Tobacco and lost a $3 million case in Chicago. So there was a lot of tension in those. The tobacco industry litigation and doing stories like that.

[Rachel Abrams]

And this whistleblower had a bombshell which was to refute this narrative that the tobacco industry had been pushing.

[Lowell Bergman]

Right. The executive had documents that showed that their own company had reverse engineered a Marlboro cigarette and had determined that there was a use of additives that caused the nicotine to get into the bloodstream faster through the lungs. And that's why people like to get to their Marlboro so fast, because their addiction would be fulfilled by buying and smoking a Marlboro cigarette. It took me a year and a half to get him to go on the record. And when that took place in the summer of 1995, there's a meeting with the general counsel. And the general counsel came up with this conclusion that we had tortiously interfered with the contract that our source, Jeffrey Wigand, had signed, which was a non disclosure agreement. They told us that we would get sued in Kentucky because we had violated his contract and had conspired to violate his contract and assist him in doing that. And a jury would come back and the Brown and Williamson Tobacco would wind up owning cbs.

[Rachel Abrams]

And therefore you couldn't do the story.

[Lowell Bergman]

It was too risky. So I called the president of CBS news and at 9 o' clock in the morning on October 3rd, 1995, and I said to him, these are just lawyers. What does CBS News say? And he said, the corporation will not risk its assets on this story. A footnote to the controversy about the tobacco piece. So it did not run. We were dismayed that the management at CBS had seen fitness to give in to perceived threats of legal action against us by a tobacco industry giant.

[Rachel Abrams]

So the bottom line is you have this great source that has agreed to go on the record about would have been a huge bombshell, that the tobacco companies were intentionally trying to make the product more addictive. And the lawyers that you're dealing with internally are saying, don't publish this. We'll get sued. It's too risky. And 60 Minutes agrees not to publish.

[Lowell Bergman]

I would say the lawyer in charge said that.

[Rachel Abrams]

The lawyer in charge. What was your reaction to that at the time?

[Lowell Bergman]

My reaction, I mean, I could have quit right there and then I decided not to. I decided to fight using any means necessary that I could gather to reverse what had happened. I promised myself I would get out the story of what did happen because this Is information about the public health. People were dying from the effects of nicotine addiction. So it was outrageous, I think, to everyone involved, actually, that we couldn't run this story. Especially because we had found a source. A unique thing, a unique person. Because no one else in the industry was available to talk about whatever they did inside that industry. And then the documents did get out there separately. And the story itself was vindicated by a leak of a deposition. That appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Everything we knew was public. CBS management wouldn't let us broadcast our original story. And our interview with Jeffrey Wigand. Because they were worried about the possibility of a multi billion dollar lawsuit against us for tortious interference. But now things have changed. And that's when it finally, four months later, was put on the air.

[David Enrich]

Part of the reason I'm here is.

[Lowell Bergman]

I felt that their representation clearly misstated.

[David Enrich]

What they commonly knew as language within the company.

[Lowell Bergman]

That we're in a nicotine delivery business. And that's what cigarettes are for. Most certainly, it's a delivery device for nicotine. Because the story ran early February of 1996. Finally, other people came out and we did further stories. People from the industry began talking and so on.

[Rachel Abrams]

Why do you think, though, that 60 Minutes producers agreed to kill the story initially? Like, this is obviously a Tiffany brand of journalism. I think people like myself, especially Associate 60 minutes. With a fierce commitment to independent journalism. Why do you think this was some sort of limit for them?

[Lowell Bergman]

All news organizations have the limits as to what they will publish or push out. Even if it's true, they'll say that they will follow any story wherever it goes. Without fear or favor or the costs involved. That's simply not true in a number of different cases. In my case, there are a number of issues involved. One of the issues was that Larry Tisch and the Tisch family. Who owned and controlled CBS at that point. Also owned and controlled Lorillard, Tobac. And when you. That famous scene where you see the seven Dwarfs raise their arm and say. I believe that nicotine is not addictive. One of them is the son of Larry Tisch.

[Rachel Abrams]

These are the seven tobacco executives that testified in front of Congress.

[Lowell Bergman]

Right. And so the. The issue of the ownership of stations by major corporate conglomerates was in the background here. Okay? That was something, by the way, that would not have happened 20 years earlier. There were. There were regulations against that.

[Rachel Abrams]

So basically what the situation you're describing was that the corporate interests of CBS at the time outweighed the journalism. That's Essentially what happened.

[Lowell Bergman]

Exactly, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

[Rachel Abrams]

So when you think back on the story that you've just told us, do you think that what has just happened with the settlement with President Trump, does it feel to you like history is repeating itself?

[Lowell Bergman]

In a way, but I think it's a lot worse.

[Rachel Abrams]

Can you explain why?

[Lowell Bergman]

Well, we know that recently ABC capitulated in a case involving George Stephanopoulos, which was weak. This case was even weaker in terms of the courts.

[Rachel Abrams]

Right. Every legal expert thought it was sort of nonsense.

[Lowell Bergman]

Right. It's nonsense. It's done to intimidate. And so the result will be that you have litigation and it becomes all consuming when you're in the middle of it. And it's not like a case involving tobacco. And the pressure that was coming down was easy to see where it would be coming from. This is the President of the United States. This is without precedent in the history of this country.

[Rachel Abrams]

I just want to push back, though, a little bit. What does it matter if Trump tries to intimidate the press? And CBS says, in this settlement, we are not changing our news standards. We might be paying you something, but. But if the coverage doesn't change, why does this matter?

[Lowell Bergman]

The words are parsed in a way to try and tell you, don't worry, don't worry. We're just paying X amount of money to settle this. It's just a minor thing. The fact is, is that Anyone working at 60 minutes from now on has to worry about what is going to be allowed on the air at a level that's. How should I put it? Not acceptable.

[Rachel Abrams]

60 Minutes had a pretty good run after this whole fiasco over Jeffrey Wigand. The sky didn't fall right. And I just sort of wonder, is it possible that things will be okay at some point after this also?

[Lowell Bergman]

Well, we can hope so, but I would say you've got to think twice, three times, four times before you get yourself into a story that might be controversial. And the new owners who are coming in, who are going to buy do not have a long tradition of being in the news business or being respectful of the traditions that it represents. We're at a really grim moment when absurd lawsuits and huge amounts of money come together to damage the public interest. So I would say you got to be a little bit depressed about what the future holds.

[Rachel Abrams]

Lowell Berkman, thank you so much for speaking with us.

[Lowell Bergman]

Thank you.

[Rachel Abrams]

Bye.

[Lowell Bergman]

Bye.

[Rachel Abrams]

We'll be right back. We all have moments when we could have done better. Like cutting your own hair. Yikes. Or forgetting sunscreen. So now you look like a tomato. Ouch. Coulda done better. Same goes for where you invest. Level up and invest smarter with Schwab. Get market insights, education and human help when you need it. Learn [e-mail] here's what else you need to know today. Authorities said that a police officer was shot outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Texas late Friday night while a group of about 15 people had slashed the tires on federal vehicles and vandalized security cameras. The detention center, about 28 miles south of Fort Worth, holds people who are awaiting deportation or are accused of violating immigration laws. Several people were taken into custody in connection with the incident. While their motives remain unclear. The shooting comes amid nationwide protests against the Trump administration's aggressive deportation tactics. Today's episode was produced by Rob Zipko, Caitlin o', Keefe, Sydney Harper, Nina Feldman and Michael Simon Johnson. It was it was edited by Lexi Dio and Paige Cowett with research help from Susan Lee. Contains original Music by Pat McCusker, Diane Wong, Marion Lozano, Rowan Niemisto and Dan Powell and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brumberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for the Daily I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.

[David Enrich]

If you could hear love, what would it sound like?

[Lowell Bergman]

Son, can we talk about your drinking?

[Edgar Sandoval]

Yeah, Dad, I think we should helping those closest to you think about their excessive drinking. Maybe that's what love sounds like.

[David Enrich]

[e-mail] an OHA initiative.