2 weeks ago
At a clip erstwhile viewers are fleeing accepted tv shows, nan CBS Sunday newsmagazine 60 Minutes remains successful a people of its own. The 12 April episode, which featured Pope Leo and a communicative connected awesome achromatic sharks, drew an astounding 10.1 cardinal full viewers. The show is trending arsenic nan most-watched news programme for nan existent broadcast season. So, arsenic nan saying goes, if it ain’t broke, why hole it?
That’s what immoderate CBS News labor and veterans are wondering, amid persistent rumors that nan show’s 59th play will look very different than nan 58th, which ends connected 17 May.
The adjacent play of nan US’s astir prestigious news show will beryllium nan first afloat nether nan purview of Bari Weiss, nan arguable heterodox sentiment writer installed arsenic editor-in-chief aft Skydance Media officially completed its acquisition of CBS’s parent, Paramount Global, successful August 2025.
One longtime web insider said to expect “massive changes” aft nan play ends, though nan web is said to person nary plans to rustle up nan format aliases to alteration nan show’s award-winning mission. Layoffs are wide expected, however. “People [at 60 Minutes] are acrophobic and they’re waiting for thing monumental to hap here,” said different web insider.
A CBS News staffer, who was not authorized to comment, expressed interest that Weiss would make changes that would harm nan show, “just for illustration she has done pinch everything other astatine CBS News.”
A 3rd web insider cautioned, however: “They don’t want to move it upside down.”
Still, nan show’s formed will undoubtedly look different.
In February, analogous Anderson Cooper announced he was leaving nan show to walk much clip pinch his family – and attraction connected nan nightly show he anchors for CNN.
On 30 April, different salient 60 Minutes correspondent, Sharyn Alfonsi, powerfully suggested that she is apt to beryllium “fired” earlier adjacent season. Speaking astatine nan National Press Club successful Washington aft being awarded nan Ridenhour prize for courage, Alfonsi decried “the dispersed of firm meddling and editorial fear” astatine nan network, though she didn’t straight sanction Weiss, who caused a firestorm aft shelving Alfonsi’s 21 December conception astir nan Trump management deporting Venezuelans to a notorious situation successful El Salvador. (Weiss had based on that nan portion needed to beryllium reworked to amended convey nan administration’s perspective.)
It was an bonzer nationalist rebuke from a existent web employee, and though Alfonsi was channeling a sentiment shared by others astatine CBS News, it is wide presumed that she will not return to nan show – a unit determination that has nan imaginable to origin important backlash for Weiss and CBS News.
“If they don’t renew her, it is successful nonstop retaliation for having nan temerity to show nan truth,” Rome Hartman, a longtime 60 Minutes shaper who retired past year, said successful an interview. “I’ve worked pinch Sharon complete galore years. She knows herself, she stands up for herself, but she is thing for illustration a troublemaker. She’s a personification that goes retired and gets these stories and does them and puts herself astatine sizeable consequence doing them, and she conscionable did what was correct present and she’s paying a unspeakable value for that.”
Alfonsi’s apt departure could create a chilling effect for nan correspondents who remain, a erstwhile 60 Minutes analogous told nan Guardian. “I conscionable cognize that if I was location now, I would person a difficult clip knowing wherever nan dial is, wherever nan upwind is blowing, what stories tin you moreover propose astatine nan consequence of alienating nan powers that be,” said nan journalist, who requested anonymity to protect relationships. In nan past, “that was ne'er nan case. Ever. There wasn’t thing that was retired of bounds.” A root adjacent to nan web pushed backmost connected nan conception that definite stories are disconnected limits.
A CBS News spokesperson declined to remark erstwhile asked astir imaginable unit moves.
Even immoderate extracurricular nan institution person shared fears astir nan show’s future. CNN’s main world anchor, Christiane Amanpour, last week expressed concern astir Paramount Skydance’s main executive, David Ellison (and his father, billionaire Donald Trump pal Larry Ellison), taking complete nan network, pointing to nan “ideological realignment” of CBS News and “the destruction, potentially, of 60 Minutes”. “Nobody tin lucifer 60 Minutes for a superb tv mag show that’s been doing difficult news and taste news and for decades and decades – top-rated, apical money-maker for nan network,” she said.
Insiders foretell that Norah O’Donnell, nan CBS News journalist who has served successful a rotating analogous domiciled since giving up her perch arsenic anchor of nan CBS Evening News successful 2025, could beryllium tapped to play a much important domiciled connected 60 Minutes.
It was O’Donnell who sewage nether Trump’s tegument during an 26 April question and reply for 60 Minutes erstwhile she publication from nan manifesto of nan man who allegedly attempted a wide shooting astatine nan yearly White House correspondents’ meal nan time before.
“I was waiting for you to publication that, because I knew you would,” Trump told O’Donnell. “Because you’re horrible people. Horrible group … You shouldn’t beryllium reference that connected 60 Minutes. You’re a disgrace.”
Two longtime 60 Minutes correspondents, 84-year-old Lesley Stahl and 68-year-old Scott Pelley, are expected to stay pinch nan show, moreover arsenic Pelley has been targeted by conservatives for critical comments he has made astir nan Trump administration. Stahl reportedly mislaid out to CBS News journalist Major Garrett for an question and reply pinch Benjamin Netanyahu, nan Israeli premier minister, that aired connected past Sunday’s 60 Minutes, though it’s not unheard of for a web analogous to behaviour specified an interview, and Garrett received favorable reviews for his questioning. As she has pinch different awesome newsmaker interviews, Weiss participated successful nan booking process. “It’s nan editor-in-chief’s occupation to make decisions astir bookings and interviews,” a CBS News spokesperson said. “Major is simply a world-class journalist and did a tough, adjacent and news-making interview.”
Weiss, who came to CBS News successful October pinch nary acquisition successful television, has not spoken publically astir her plans for a revamped 60 Minutes and has not granted interviews. But she discussed her desire to “expand” nan 60 Minutes marque during an worker municipality hallway gathering successful precocious January.
Calling 60 Minutes “one of nan astir important, valuable brands, not conscionable to CBS News but to publicity successful America”, Weiss said: “I deliberation it should beryllium astatine nan bosom and halfway of what we do … The thought that that should conscionable beryllium thing group are encountering for an hr connected a Sunday nighttime doesn’t make consciousness to me, particularly erstwhile there’s truthful overmuch emotion and devotion and spot successful that brand.”
The web is expected to look for opportunities to grow nan brand’s scope and to clasp caller platforms and formats. (Some past attempts astatine expanding nan marque person been short-lived, including a weeknight spinoff called 60 Minutes II and 1 called 60 Minutes Sports that ran connected Showtime for only a fewer years.)
During nan municipality hall, Weiss said she would beryllium “across” 60 Minutes’ editorial process but would not beryllium micromanaging it, leaving that to nan executive producer, Tanya Simon (the girl of nan legendary 60 Minutes analogous Bob Simon), and nan executive editor, Draggan Mihailovich. “I person nary liking successful disrupting a productive civilization that exists successful a show aliases a section successful this company,” Weiss said.
But location are questions internally astir really overmuch sway Simon has complete nan show pinch Weiss much heavy involved. In her remarks connected 30 April, Alfonsi suggested that Weiss had so meddled, and she recounted her unwillingness to alteration a conception that had already been screened and vetted. “My stance did not make my caller bosses very happy,” Alfonsi said.
The show’s 58th play already began pinch a awesome alteration astatine nan top, aft Bill Owens – nan longtime executive shaper and nan 3rd successful nan show’s history – opted to resign successful protestation of what he said was firm cowardice and meddling.
“Our owners were moving to censor 60 Minutes, attempting to extremity america from covering nan difficult stories we had ever brought to you,” said Owens connected 30 April, aft besides receiving a Ridenhour prize for courage. Upon taking complete nan show successful 2019, Owens said, his superior extremity was to not “harm a hairsbreadth connected nan caput of this broadcast”.
While overmuch of nan broader chat astir nan show has centered connected clashes and controversies, those adjacent to nan show opportunity its publicity has been rock-solid – and correspondents person shown nary signs of pulling punches – truthful far.
“Just arsenic a viewer, I deliberation 60 Minutes has been 60 Minutes this season,” said Hartman, nan erstwhile show producer. “I deliberation it’s been a beardown operation of difficult stories and characteristic stories, which I deliberation is what it has ever aspired to be. And I deliberation Tanya and nan correspondents merit a batch of in installments for that.”
But, he added, “I americium highly worried that that will change.”
Michael J Socolow, a media historiographer astatine nan University of Maine whose begetter was a salient executive astatine CBS News, said he was hesitant to remark connected 60 Minutes’ early because he had antecedently expressed certainty that nan show would beryllium mostly near untouched, an assertion that now seems inaccurate.
Still, he expressed assurance successful nan show’s elder leadership, astir notably Simon – though her domiciled arsenic executive shaper was reportedly only contractually guaranteed for 1 year.
He besides noted that “the 60 Minutes marque has survived respective controversies complete nan decades”, mentioning the 2013 suspension of Lara Logan, a 60 Minutes correspondent, for a discredited study connected nan 2012 Benghazi consulate attack, and nan mishandling of an question and reply successful nan 1990s pinch baccy manufacture whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand, an incident that Alfonsi said – in her December memo to colleagues astir Weiss pulling her El Salvadoran situation conception – “nearly [destroyed] nan credibility of this broadcast”.
“There person been issues successful 60 Minutes’ history that harm nan brand. There’s nary question,” Socolow said. “And it survives and it goes back.”
