The president of CBS News was forced out of her post on Monday, the latest shock wave to hit one of the country’s most prominent television news divisions amid an ongoing showdown involving President Trump, CBS and its parent company, Paramount.
Wendy McMahon, whose full title was president of CBS News and Stations, told her staff in a memo that “it’s become clear the company and I do not agree on the path forward.”
Tensions between Ms. McMahon and Paramount have simmered for months — a period that Ms. McMahon described in her memo as “challenging.” Executives at Paramount had made it clear in recent days that they wanted Ms. McMahon to leave the company, according to several people with direct knowledge who requested anonymity to discuss private discussions.
Paramount is in talks to settle a $20 billion lawsuit brought by Mr. Trump that accused “60 Minutes” of deceptively editing an interview last year with his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris. Many legal experts have called the suit baseless, but Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, has said she favors settling the case. She is seeking the Trump administration’s approval for a multibillion-dollar sale of her company to a Hollywood studio, Skydance.
The situation prompted the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens, to resign last month, saying he no longer enjoyed his usual journalistic independence. At the time, Ms. McMahon took pains to signal her support for Mr. Owens, saying that “standing behind” the producer “was an easy decision for me.”
Her embrace of Mr. Owens and “60 Minutes” put Ms. McMahon at odds with Paramount executives who were anxious about the show’s reporting about the Trump administration. Within CBS News, some journalists expected Ms. McMahon to be gone within months. But the timing of her announcement, less than 24 hours after Sunday’s season finale of “60 Minutes,” still raised eyebrows.
George Cheeks, the chief executive of CBS, said in a memo that Ms. McMahon would remain at the network for “a few weeks to support the transition.” She will be succeeded for now by a pair of veteran network executives: Tom Cibrowski, who was recently named president of CBS News; and Jennifer Mitchell, the president of CBS Stations.
Ms. McMahon’s tenure atop CBS News, which she took over in August 2023, has been rocky at times.
An overhaul of “CBS Evening News,” introduced earlier this year, has failed to connect with viewers, and ratings for the flagship newscast have fallen sharply. Besides the tussle with Mr. Trump, the news division also faced internal criticism from Ms. Redstone over a “60 Minutes” segment in January about the war between Israel and Hamas.
And Ms. Redstone openly criticized Ms. McMahon’s handling of an October incident involving the “CBS Mornings” anchor Tony Dokoupil, who in an interview had challenged the author Ta-Nehisi Coates’s views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
CBS News executives rebuked Mr. Dokoupil on a newsroom-wide call, saying his interview fell short of editorial standards. Ms. Redstone said that move was “a mistake” and that Mr. Dokoupil “did a great job with that interview.”
Michael M. Grynbaum writes about the intersection of media, politics and culture. He has been a media correspondent at The Times since 2016.
Benjamin Mullin reports for The Times on the major companies behind news and entertainment. Contact him securely on Signal at +1 530-961-3223 or at [email protected].
Lauren Hirsch covers Wall Street for The Times, including M&A, executive changes, board strife and policy moves affecting business.
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