CBS News entered a new period of turmoil on Tuesday after the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens, said that he would resign from the long-running Sunday news program because he had lost his journalistic independence.
In an extraordinary declaration, Mr. Owens — only the third person to run the program in its 57-year history — told his staff in a memo that “over the past months, it has become clear that I 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.”
“So, having defended this show — and what we stand for — from every angle, over time with everything I could, I am stepping aside so the show can move forward,” he wrote in the memo, which was obtained by The New York Times.
“60 Minutes” has faced mounting pressure in recent months from both President Trump, who sued CBS for $10 billion and has accused the program of “unlawful and illegal behavior,” and its own corporate ownership at Paramount, the parent company of CBS News.
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, and Mr. Owens said in February that he would not apologize as part of any prospective settlement. 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.
In his memo on Tuesday, Mr. Owens pledged that “‘60 Minutes’ will continue to cover the new administration, as we will report on future administrations.” He added: “The show is too important to the country. It has to continue, just not with me as the executive producer.”
Mr. Owens had also led a recent overhaul of “CBS Evening News,” the news division’s flagship weeknight show. He first worked at CBS as a summer intern in 1988, and was named the executive producer of “60 Minutes” in 2019.
Mr. Trump has often singled out “60 Minutes” for scorn. In 2020, he cut short an interview with Lesley Stahl after he became displeased with her questions. He declined to be interviewed by the program during last year’s presidential campaign.
On April 13, apparently irked by that evening’s edition of the show, Mr. Trump accused “60 Minutes” of “fraudulent, beyond recognition, reporting” in a social media post and urged his government regulators to strip CBS of its broadcast license. “CBS is out of control, at levels never seen before, and they should pay a big price for this,” Mr. Trump wrote.
Executives at Paramount and at Skydance took notice of the president’s angry comments, according to three people familiar with internal discussions. Settlement talks between Paramount and Mr. Trump are ongoing, and the two sides have chosen a mediator to help resolve the case.
In recent months, “60 Minutes” has also faced scrutiny from Ms. Redstone herself, who complained to CBS executives about a story focused on the Biden administration’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas. One day after that segment aired, a veteran CBS producer, Susan Zirinsky, was appointed to a new role overseeing the news division’s journalistic standards.
Wendy McMahon, the president of CBS News and Stations, wrote in a separate note on Tuesday that she remained “committed to ‘60 Minutes’ and to ensuring that the mission and the work remain our priority.”
She also praised Mr. Owens. “Standing behind what he stood for was an easy decision for me, and I never took for granted that he did the same for me,” she wrote.
Benjamin Mullin and Lauren Hirsch contributed reporting.
Michael M. Grynbaum writes about the intersection of media, politics and culture. He has been a media correspondent at The Times since 2016.
The post Top Producer of ‘60 Minutes’ Quits, Saying He Lost Independence appeared first on New York Times.
