April 22, Bill Owens, only the third executive producer of ”60 minutes“In his 57-year history, suddenly resigned from its position, with reference to editorial involvement from the management at CBS. And now the news magazine itself has sent a stinging punishment of that involvement, delivered on-air by host Scott Pelley as the closing segment in its broadcast April 27.
The network’s parent company, Paramount, has tried to clear the road with the Trump administration’s Ministry of Justice for its Skydance merger. After Trump’s trial against “60 minutes” for what the now president and his lawyers had proposed, with a small foundation, was a flattering editing for a 2024 interview with his opponent Kamala Harris, Paramount seems to have been worried that it may not be easy to sail for the merger after all.
Therefore, in January, CBS introduced a new layer of management to add extra monitoring to veting stories of CBS News’ Portfolio of Shows. Susan Zirinski, who had once chaired CBS News, was appointed Interim Executive Editor. In his on-air punishment, Pelley was clear to mention that CBS had not killed any stories about the Trump administration or its effect on Americans’ lives in recent months. But his statement made it clear that disturbances had occurred.
“Tonight’s’ last minute ‘, a note about Bill Owens, who until the past week was the executive producer ’60 minutes.’ He was our manager. He covered the world. Urate and Fair. journalism requires. No one here is happy about it, but when he resigned Bill showed one thing: he was the right person to lead ’60 minutes’ all the time. “
The criticism in the air, unusual in “60 minutes” -dock Lesley Stahl expressed his dissatisfaction – follows increasing dissatisfaction with the broadcast journalism world when managers balance their reporters’ independence with a desire to play nice with the administration. MSNBC was already in a mess, with falling ratings and Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski’s misleading November visit in Mar-A-Lago. The network then fired Joy Reid and reduced Alex Wagner’s visibility. NBCuniversal hopes to be able to spin off the network as its own company later this year. Jon Stewart had also called CNN and NBC News to say reporters not to share their views.
Mark Thompson seems to have stabilized the ship at CNN. He needed, after Trump–Trousing Mistakes during the Bids, for example Firing Brian Stelter (which has now been repeated) and Host a town hall with Trump the day after he had proven to be liable for rape Like judgment in E. Jean Carroll Civil Trial. Not to mention the little question of cutting from sobering images during the first day of War against Ukraine 2022 to an Applebee’s advertising.
How to navigate at this moment is something that all networks are struggling with, but in the case of CBS and “60 minutes” one seems clear: the movements in recent months that got Owen’s departure were made to earn Paramount’s interests, not the viewers.
See the entire segment of Pelle that discusses Owen’s departure below.
