The Columbia Broadcasting System, known as CBS, has long been one of America's most admired media brands, from Edward R. Murrow's radio reports during World War II while bombs fell around him in England to the investigative invention of the televised news magazine "60 Minutes."

Now, with American media under constant attack from a presidency eager to tip toward tyranny, there's good reason a recent Broadway revival of a show named after Murrow's famous sign-off line – "Good night, and good luck" – was greeted with such acclaim.

The people in charge at Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, have no inspirational words to offer Americans these days. If they had a sign-off line, it would be more like "Give in, and pay up."

That's just what Paramount did on July 2, Wednesday,

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