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‘60 Minutes’ Chief Resigns as CBS Corporate Parent Paramount Prepares to Fellate Trump
Michael M. Grynbaum and Benjamin Mullin, reporting for The New York Times: CBS News entered a new period of turmoil on Tuesday after the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens, said he would resign from the long-running Sunday news program, citing encroachments on his journalistic independence. [...] “It’s clear the company is done with me,” Mr. Owens said, according to a recording that was obtained by The Times. The correspondents Lesley Stahl and Scott Pelley were in attendance — Ms. Stahl choked up as she praised Mr. Owens, and noted that he had “taken a hell of a beating” — and Anderson Cooper dialed in from Rome, where he was covering Pope Francis’ death for CNN. During the meeting, Mr. Owens alluded to his displeasure with additional layers of oversight that CBS executives had placed on the program. “In a million years, the corporation didn’t know what was coming up — they trusted ‘60 Minutes’ to report the stories and program the broadcast the way ‘60 Minutes’ saw fit,” he said. Any change to that arrangement, he added, created “a really slippery slope.” Mr. Owens also discouraged his staff from quitting in protest. “I do think this will be a moment for the corporation to take a hard look at itself and its relationship with us,” he said. Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, is eager to secure the Trump administration’s approval for a multibillion-dollar sale of her company to Skydance, a company run by the son of the tech billionaire Larry Ellison. She has expressed a desire to settle Mr. Trump’s case, which stems from what the president has called a deceptively edited interview in October with Vice President Kamala Harris that aired on “60 Minutes.” Legal experts have dismissed that suit as baseless and far-fetched. Many journalists at CBS News — the former home of Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace — believe that a settlement would amount to a capitulation to Mr. Trump over what they consider standard-issue gripes about editorial judgment. Journalistic outlets need owners who are committed to the cause. It’s that simple. ★
Michael M. Grynbaum and Benjamin Mullin, reporting for The New York Times:
CBS News entered a new period of turmoil on Tuesday after the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens, said he would resign from the long-running Sunday news program, citing encroachments on his journalistic independence. [...]
“It’s clear the company is done with me,” Mr. Owens said, according to a recording that was obtained by The Times. The correspondents Lesley Stahl and Scott Pelley were in attendance — Ms. Stahl choked up as she praised Mr. Owens, and noted that he had “taken a hell of a beating” — and Anderson Cooper dialed in from Rome, where he was covering Pope Francis’ death for CNN.
During the meeting, Mr. Owens alluded to his displeasure with additional layers of oversight that CBS executives had placed on the program. “In a million years, the corporation didn’t know what was coming up — they trusted ‘60 Minutes’ to report the stories and program the broadcast the way ‘60 Minutes’ saw fit,” he said. Any change to that arrangement, he added, created “a really slippery slope.”
Mr. Owens also discouraged his staff from quitting in protest. “I do think this will be a moment for the corporation to take a hard look at itself and its relationship with us,” he said.
Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, is eager to secure the Trump administration’s approval for a multibillion-dollar sale of her company to Skydance, a company run by the son of the tech billionaire Larry Ellison. She has expressed a desire to settle Mr. Trump’s case, which stems from what the president has called a deceptively edited interview in October with Vice President Kamala Harris that aired on “60 Minutes.”
Legal experts have dismissed that suit as baseless and far-fetched. Many journalists at CBS News — the former home of Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace — believe that a settlement would amount to a capitulation to Mr. Trump over what they consider standard-issue gripes about editorial judgment.
Journalistic outlets need owners who are committed to the cause. It’s that simple.
