All seemed normal in the first 98% of Sunday’s broadcast of “60 Minutes” on CBS. But the remaining 2% may have shocked viewers.
In the show’s “Last Minute” segment, correspondent Scott Pelley told the audience of the venerable newsmagazine that Bill Owens, the program’s executive producer, opted to depart last week as Paramount Global, the parent of CBS News, tries to navigate its way to a merger and after it had placed more scrutiny on “60 Minutes” editorial processes while the show investigated war in the Gaza region and how President Trump’s policies affected Americans.
“Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways. None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires,” Pelley said. “No one here is happy about it.”
The segment offered a rare instance of “60 Minutes” personnel criticizing the parent company’s management of the newsmagazine, one of TV’s highest-rated programs and one of journalism’s most respected vehicles, and of the show opening its inner workings to viewers who, on most weeks, are likely unaware of them.
Owens, just the third executive producer in the nearly six-decade history of the show, surprised many last week by saying he intended to leave the program, citing an increasing lack of ability “to make independent decisions based on what was right for ’60 Minutes,’ right for the audience” as parent company Paramount Global tries to move past a lawsuit filed against CBS News by President Donald Trump and secure its future in a merger with Skydance Media. At issue has been the interest of Shari Redstone, Paramount’s controlling shareholder, in finding a way to move past what is perceived as a slow-walk of regulatory approval for the pending acquisition of her company by Skydance President Trump filed a suit in federal court in the Northern District of Texas in November, alleging that “60 Minutes” tried to mislead voters by airing two different edits of remarks made in an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, then Trump’s rival for the White House. CBS sought to have the case thrown out, and many legal experts have expressed the notion that the suit’s legal standing is flimsy.
Paramount in January put in place a new layer of editorial supervision at CBS News, naming Susan Zirinsky, a veteran producer and former CBS News president, as “interim executive editor” who was assigned to oversee standards, and help to vet stories and journalistic practices. The new role was created after a series of controversies tied to CBS News coverage across shows including “60 Minutes” and “CBS Mornings.” But the structure proved alarming to people who put “60 Minutes” together each week. Owens said Tuesday that he faced an increasing lack of ability “to make independent decisions based on what was right for ’60 Minutes,’ right for the audience.”
The show has enjoyed an unprecedented level of autonomy in its nearly six decades on air, and while it has long screened its stories for legal scrutiny and adherence to journalism standards, it has been allowed to police itself. Suddenly, producers were being asked to incorporate someone else into its process. In this case, Al Ortiz, a former CBS News senior producer and head of news standards and practices, was helping to vet stories, according to three of the people familiar with the matter. Ortiz had enjoyed a cordial relationship with Owens in the past and has enjoyed respect throughout his career, these people indicate, but his new presence left show producers feeling they were being monitored by outsiders with motivations not entirely focused on the program. Owens’ resignation is seen by “60 Minutes’ staffers as a warning sign to corporate about the potential erosion of the newsmagazine’s credibility.
“Bill resigned on Tuesday. It was hard on him and it was hard on us,” Pelley said. “But he did it for us.”
News anchors have not often been given leeway to criticize the company that pays their salaries on the very vehicle that is owned by the corporation. In the last year, however, more news personnel have been put on a longer leash.
MSNBC and parent NBCUniversal allowed many of MSNBC’s most prominent anchors, including Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace and Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, to carp on a decision by NBC News personnel to hire former Republican operative Ronna McDaniel as a news analyst. McDaniel’s credibility was under a microscope, but the sight of a parade of anchors lambasting employers and managers was an eyebrow-raiser to put things mildly. In the same year, Disney’s ESPN had to contend with host Pat McAfee, a rambunctious host, hurling invective at a former senior executive, Norby Williamson, who the host alleged had tried to sabotage his program.
In the past, acts perceived as being tantamount to even mild rebellion were punished — and quickly. Josh Elliott, the former “Good Morning America” team member who arrived at CBS News after a stint at NBC Sports, gained traction as an anchor of the Paramount Global division’s new streaming effort, then called CBSN. But he let slip one day in 2017 that he was being promoted to work from some of CBS News linear properties, without getting go-ahead to do so from executives. Instead of being shown a new desk, the anchor was shown the door. Brooke Baldwin’s decision in 2020 to post on Instagram that her afternoon CNN program had been trimmed in favor of campaign coverage and that the decision was “not my choice” was said to have enraged top executives at the outlet. She left CNN in 2021 after having gained popularity with audiences.
Outrage at “60 Minutes” is palpable. Correspondent Lesley Stahl told Variety last week that “I have been made aware of interference in our news processes, and calling into question our judgement,” adding: “That is not the way that companies that own news organizations should be acting.”
The choice of Pelley to deliver the message on air may have been apt. The anchor has not been afraid to challenge CBS News management in the past. In 2019, Pelley took to CNN’s “Reliable Sources” media-news program to allege that he was taken off CBS’ evening-news broadcast in 2017 after raising complaints internally about the news division’s workplace culture.“We’ve been through a dark period of the last several years of incompetent management and sort of a hostile work environment within the news division,” Pelley said during his appearance He added: “I lost my job at the ‘Evening News’ because I wouldn’t stop complaining to management about the hostile work environment.”
Pelley has also been known to be close to Owens. While the two were reporting from Iraq in 2003, Owens sprinted to give Pelley a gas mask after hearing an explosion overhead, fearing that the anchor was about to be harmed by a chemical attack. “It turned out the shell that exploded over our heads was not a chemical weapon,” Pelley recalled to Variety in 2020. “But he didn’t know that.”
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