ICYMI: Inside the Turmoil at CBS' 60 Minutes

Shari Redstone wanted to know what 60 Minutes was going to say next about President Donald Trump.

The CBS newsmagazine aired two segments involving Trump on April 13 that angered the president, one on his plans to take over Greenland and another an interview with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that discussed US policy in the region. Trump immediately lashed out on social media, saying 60 Minutes should “pay a big price” for its frequent reporting on him, which he called “fraudulent.”

Following Trump’s post, Redstone, who is the chair of CBS’ parent company Paramount Global, had a conversation with CBS Chief Executive Officer George Cheeks to discuss 60 Minutes’ upcoming slate of stories about the president. Redstone indicated which ones she thought were fair and those that could be problematic, according to CBS employees Bloomberg spoke with.

60 Minutes didn’t change its plans based on her feedback, the employees said. The network aired a segment Sunday about Trump’s cuts to the National Institutes of Health. Still, Executive Producer Bill Owens announced to his staff last week that he’s leaving, citing corporate interference at the most-watched TV news program in the US.

The 37-year CBS News veteran said in a memo to staff that it had become clear he “would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it. To make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience.”

Also on Sunday night, correspondent Scott Pelley closed out the show with an explanation for Owens’ departure. “Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways,” Pelley told viewers. “None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he had lost the independence that honest journalism requires. No one here is happy about it.”

Owens’ exit is the culmination of months of conflict between Redstone and CBS’ news division, during which the billionaire publicly criticized its decision-making and privately pushed for leadership changes, according to interviews with almost a dozen current and former Paramount employees, most of whom asked to not be identified discussing internal company business. Redstone, Owens and Cheeks all declined to comment. Semafor reported earlier some details about Redstone’s request to hear about upcoming stories.

For more on this story, Tim Stenovec and Emily Graffeo speak with Bloomberg News Entertainment Reporter Lucas Shaw

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:22):
Many of you have seen or heard or watched what
Scott Pelley said on Sixty Minutes on Sunday evening. It
was in reference to longtime executive producer Bill Owens announcing
to his staff last week that he's leaving, citing corporate
interference at the most watched news program in the US.
Here's what he said. Quote, Paramount began to supervise our
content in new ways. None of our stories has been blocked,

(00:43):
but Bill felt he lost his independence. That honest journalism
requires the independence that John's journalism requires. No one here
is happy about it. Joining us now with an inside
look at everything happening at sixty Minutes is Lucas shad
Managing editor for Media Entertainment. He joins us from Los Angeles. Lucas,

(01:03):
I feel like everything at this point is political, But
truly this story is political.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
What's going on here, It's all tied up into the
ongoing saga at Paramount Global, which has been in talks
to sell itself for eighteen months. But Scott Pelly's comments
and the resignation of our I should say, the departure
of Billow and they didn't technically resign, I think is

(01:29):
the result or the culmination really of months of tension
between Cherry Redstone, who is the chairperson of Paramount Global,
whose family controls the company, and her news division, and
that started with frustrations related to kind of Gaza coverage
because Sherry is very passionate about the state of Israel.
That started on CBS this morning, continued on Sixty Minutes,

(01:52):
and then as she realized that Donald Trump suit against
Sixty Minutes, which was related to the editing of a
pam La Harris interview, might jeopardize the sale of the company,
it just escalated. And so you've seen her both publicly
and privately clashing with that news division, ultimately leading in
the news of the last week.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
Lucas, tell us what your reporting has shown about those
public and private clashes, and just how unprecedented this is
to see the chair of a parent company of a
news organization intervene in coverage like this.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Well, there was a CBS This Morning segment in late
September I believe might have been early October, but right
around there where they interviewed Tanahasey Coates, who is the
author of a new book called The Message, and a
particular anchor, Tondakapil, was aggressive, shall we say, in talking

(02:47):
to and questioning tanahase The News division ended up scolding him,
and then Shay Redstone came out publicly and said that
they made a mistake in doing so and she didn't
think that his questions were over the line. And January
sixty Minutes did a piece on members of the State
Department resigning in protests because of the kind of US's

(03:07):
support for Israel and some of the violence in Gaza.
She didn't like that piece, and that was when she
started sort of privately saying maybe we should make a
change at sixty minutes. And it's really kind of it's
continued from there. I mean, you asked unprecedented. I don't
know that it's unprecedented. I mean people who own news
companies tend to like to influence what their news outlets say.

(03:30):
You know, some of that is just in the opinion.
Some of it's not. You know, we had John Malone,
who was one of the largest shareholders and Warner Brothers
Discovery talk I think pretty openly after he helped or
orchestrate the merger of Time, Warner and Discovery about how
CNN had maybe tilted a little too far to the left.
So there's it's sort of an evergreen topic. But people

(03:53):
do seem particularly perturbed in this case, partially because sixty
minutes is such a story brand and as operated with
a tremendous amount of independence over the years, and partially
because most people think that Trump suits against sixty minutes
is completely meritless.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Hey, Lucas, I want to know about sixty Minutes in
the future of sixty Minutes without longtime executive producer Bill
Owens and with Scott Pelly making these comments on Sunday Night.
I mean, is this, in your view, going to be
a news program that will continue to have the influence
that it's had over the last few years many years?

Speaker 3 (04:28):
I think so yeah. I mean, look, I view what
Bill Owens and Scott Pelly have done as more warning
signals there's nothing that has changed about the programming of
the show, right, even though Shay Redstone wanted to know
about upcoming stories about Trump. They did a piece on
Trump on Sunday. Right, They're not changing their programming now,

(04:49):
will this be different in the new regime? Are they
going to hire some new producer of sixty minutes who
is more pliant as part of getting their deal approved
by the FCC? Theyre going to eliminate some of the
journalistic independence that it is enjoyed. Those are possible. None
of that's happened yet, and so I think what you're
seeing is a lot of news people concerned about what

(05:11):
could happen, and so it's very hard for me to
project out what it will because at the moment, I
think the brand of sixty minutes is fine and the
average person has no idea that any of this happened.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
It's a good point, Lucas, just quickly, what did the
sixty minutes employees have to say about Bill's departure.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
I mean, they're all they're all spooped and very sad.
You know, we spoke with one of them on the record,
many of them off the record or on background, and
yet they're they're you know, they all revere Bill as
a journalist and kind of stand behind him. And don't
like this idea that their owner is meddling and what

(05:49):
they're trying to do. I think, you know, sixty minutes,
as I said earlier, has long had a really strong
degree of independence, and that has meant sort of ignoring
what their own and bosses want to say. And this
notion that anyone is trying to take that away from them,
you know, is frightening and concerning to them.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
All Right, Lucas, gonna leave it there. I know you
got a run. We appreciate you joining us today. That's
Lucas Shaw, Managing Editor, Media and Entertainment for Bloomberg News,
joining us out there in Los Angeles. This is the
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(06:31):
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