CBS News insiders are sounding the alarm over Bari Weiss‘ revamped ‘60 Minutes,’ with one senior staffer declaring the show already “dead.”
The grim verdict came from an unnamed CBS News senior staffer who spoke with media columnist Justin Baragona in a Wednesday article for his Zeteo newsletter “Ragebait.”
“The show is dead. We’re just looking at some Frankenstein of bits sewn together of mismatched pieces,” the staffer told Baragona. “I think the season is in trouble.”
The doom-saying followed the network’s own upbeat press release about the premiere, which one CBS reporter mocked in an all-caps text to Baragona.
“WELCOME TO THE SPIN ZONE!!!” the reporter wrote, according to Baragona.
Staffers have reason to worry. The season debut of Weiss’ overhauled ’60 Minutes’ pulled in the worst premiere ratings this century, according to final Nielsen figures. The newsmagazine drew about 7.9 million total viewers, down roughly 21 percent from last year’s premiere, with a steeper 33 percent drop in the key 25-to-54 demographic that advertisers pay a premium to reach.
The internal gloom has been building since Weiss took over CBS News earlier this year and veteran producers and correspondents headed for the exits. One staffer previously told Baragona that anchor Norah O’Donnell was “willing to play the part of dimwit reporter used as a propaganda tool.”
Weiss and her boss, Paramount CEO David Ellison, have drawn criticism for their ties to President Donald Trump and his administration, and critics blamed the ratings slide on that leadership rather than the competing NFL games that aired that same Sunday.
“Nearly 2 million people collectively just said, f— you Bari Weiss,” a CBS News senior staffer told Baragona, referring to the loss of viewers between last season’s ’60 Minutes’ premiere and this year’s. “And also, f— you David Ellison.”
Online, the schadenfreude was thick. “Bari is a loser,” journalist and radio host Doug Henwood wrote. Author Don Winslow needled, “Is this called winning??”
The post ‘The show is dead’: CBS insider calls Bari Weiss’ ’60 Minutes’ a sewn-up ‘Frankenstein’ appeared first on Raw Story.
