CBS and Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone is back in the news today, for all the wrong reasons. Redstone left a long voicemail message on the answering machine of The Daily Beast’s Peter Lauria, asking for Lauria to give up a source on a story he wrote last month.
Redstone went so far as to offer an apparent bribe to Lauria:
We’re not going to hurt this guy. We just want to sit him down and find out why he did what he did. You will not in any way be revealed. You will be well-rewarded and well-protected.
PRNewser has more on the PR angle of the story, including the fact that Viacom PR execs were apparently not aware of the billionaire’s friendly phone call.
CBS News is among the organizations that Redstone oversees, indirectly, of course.
A staffer at CBS says that Redstone is mostly MIA from the New York broadcast center. By comparison, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves makes occasional appearances in the building and newsroom.
As for Redstone’s latest antic, staffers at the network are apparently finding it just as funny as the rest of the New York media world.