The departure of the top producer of “60 Minutes” on Tuesday marked a concerted effort by the staff of the venerable newsmagazine to send a message to one of the show’s most important viewers: its ultimate boss.
Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS News, has taken increasing interest in “60 Minutes” in recent months, according to six people familiar with the matter. She did so as she attempts to navigate a sale of the company known for owning CBS and the Paramount movie studio to Skydance Media, controlled by entrepreneur David Ellison. The sale will be life-changing for Paramount, which has lagged behind its contemporaries as audiences migrate away from once-powerful cable networks like MTV and TV Land, and it will help Redstone maintain her family’s fortune.
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“60 Minutes” has made that transaction more complex. An interview between correspondent Bill Whitaker and former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, presented on CBS in the days leading into the 2024 election, has become fodder for what many experts believe is a meritless suit by President Donald Trump against CBS. At issue: Trump allegations, filed in federal court in the Northern District of Texas in November, that “60 Minutes” tried to mislead voters by airing two different edits of remarks made in the interview with Harris, then Trump’s rival for the White House. CBS has sought to have the case thrown out. Since that time, however, the Federal Communications Commission has opened an investigation into the matter and CBS and Trump attorneys have engaged a mediator.
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Little wonder, or so Paramount executives would tell you, that a new layer of editorial supervision was put in place at CBS News. In January, Susan Zirinsky, a veteran producer and former CBS News president, was named “interim executive editor” and 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. Bill Owens, only the third executive producer in the venerable program’s history, 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.” In journalism circles, there are few things worse — particularly in an era when more mainstream news outlets have seen decisions made by business owners like Disney (ABC News) and Jeff Bezos (The Washington Post) that seem more concerned with sparking favorable relationships with current national leaders than with explaining the world to audiences without fear or favor.
Owens’ departure — along with various staff rumblings that have accompanied it — is seen as a smoke signal of sorts to Redstone, a cautionary note about what could happen to the program if it’s not allowed to continue in truly independent fashion. Other prominent personnel have also been vexed. “I have been made aware of interference in our news processes, and calling into question our judgment,” correspondent Lesley Stahl told Variety during an interview Tuesday. “That is not the way that companies that own news organizations should be acting.”
Such a microscope trained on “60 Minutes” has not only been unwelcome, but also unheard of. 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 asked to incorporate someone else into its process. In this case, Al Oritz, 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, these people indicate, but his new presence left show producers feeling they had what one person calls “a plant” in their midst whose role was to feed information to senior Paramount executives and Redstone.
Paramount and CBS News declined to comment on the matter, as did a spokesperson for Shari Redstone.
In decades past, “60 Minutes” might have been able to evade Redstone’s gaze. Remember the era of “60 Minutes 2” on the CBS schedule and the launch of “60 Minutes Sports” on a cable network called Showtime. In the current era, in which every bedrock element of the media business is in flux, however, even mainstays are being torn up at the roots. At Warner Bros. Discovery, executives have made the decision to get out of a decades-old alliance with the NBA, letting big-audience basketball telecasts bounce over to NBC and Amazon. Comcast is spinning off the bulk of its NBCUniversal cable networks, carving up a massive news operation that had MSNBC, CNBC and NBC News trade their newsgathering across platforms. Disney’s ESPN has unveiled plans to cut its years-long association with Major League Baseball, citing costs and resources. Can you imagine any of these decisions being made 10 or 20 years ago?
People familiar with the matter say Zirinsky’s role changed little about the newsmagazine. No “60 Minutes” stories were spiked or altered in significant fashion, three of them say. And one person with knowledge of the matter says Zirinsky sometimes pushed back on Paramount executives who questioned why “60 Minutes” had to air certain stories on a particular Sunday evening. She served more as a buffer than a cop, these people say, and wasn’t solely focused on “60 Minutes.”
Still, “60 Minutes” producers still felt needlessly grilled. Zirinsky and her team were specifically tasked with examining sensitive stories, particularly those concerning the Middle East and politics, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Even in a time when people can get easy access to news and information — and are more prone to take instruction in bite-sized oratories from digital influencers — “60 Minutes” offers significant value to Paramount. While it’s nearing 60 years on the air, and Mike Wallace and Andy Rooney (who each died more than a decade ago) no longer present segments, “60 Minutes” remains one of TV’s most-watched programs. In recent seasons, CBS has on occasion run 90-minute episodes of the show, and Paramount has shown expanded interest in expanding the program to new formats like podcasts and FAST channels. With the TV industry’s annual upfront ad-sales market about to launch, questions about the credibility of “60 Minutes” could unnerve some of the pharmaceutical advertisers whose dollars fuel much of the CBS programming schedule.
Staffers at the show seem to take some comfort in promises made to them that their next leader will come from within their own ranks. Tanya Simon, the executive editor of “60 Minutes,” will take over the program on an interim basis and is seen as a likely candidate to succeed Owens, according to people familiar with the show. Whether David Ellison and Skydance will adhere to the pledges made by executives who preceded them remains to be seen.
