CBS boss Shari Redstone secretly told 60 Minutes producers to hold stories critical of Donald Trump until federal authorities approved a crucial merger, it was reported Thursday.
Redstone is trying to exit the media business by merging Paramount, CBS’ parent company, of which she is the controlling shareholder through the National Amusements company, with Skydance, which is owned by David Ellison, son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison.
Longtime 60 Minutes producer Bill Owens announced his departure from CBS last week, claiming behind-the-scenes moves by network heads had left him without the editorial freedom to pursue the program’s storied hard-hitting journalism.
But a fresh investigation into the drama by Puck revealed cracks in the relationship first started to show in October, when Redstone apparently initially took offense over the program’s coverage of the one-year anniversary of the Israel-Gaza conflict, claiming the broadcast was imbalanced against Israel.
“Being p—ed off about the Gaza stuff gives her moral permission to get involved,” an inside source told the outlet, and confirmed her anger over the story, combined with the upcoming merger, emboldened Redstone to exert more executive influence over 60 Minutes.
Following the incident, Redstone appointed former CBS News president Susan Zirinsky to a new role overseeing editorial standards and reportedly gave her an express mandate to dive into coverage of the Middle East, with network insiders privately suspecting she served as a proxy for Redstone to indirectly exert more pressure on the show.
Around the same time, sources claimed that Redstone also asked CBS CEO George Cheeks if it was possible to delay critical stories about Trump or his administration until after the Skydance merger had been approved.
Trump has made 60 Minutes a focus of his ire after a long bad-tempered relationship with the primetime show. He refused to sit down for an interview last October then raged at their Kamala Harris interview. When the network showed an extract from Harris answering a question on Face the Nation then a different part of the same answer on 60 Minutes, he claimed it was an attempt to manipulate the election, then sued CBS for “$20 billion.”
In office, he has continued to rage at 60 Minutes for what he claims is unfair and biased coverage of his presidency. On April 15, he urged the Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr to “impose the maximum fines and punishment,” on the network. The FCC has power to approve the Skydance-Paramount merger, giving Carr huge leverage over Redstone.
Separately, Trump is now in arbitration with Paramount over his lawsuit. It reportedly is offering $20 million—still a vast amount of money for a case which legal experts said was laughable—while Trump wants a much larger sum. He secured $15 million from ABC News for George Stephanopoulos mischaracterizing the E. Jean Carroll case, saying of Trump, “judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape” when he was found liable for sexual assault
Puck reported that after the April outburst, Redstone called Cheeks and told him to let her know what else she could expect from 60 Minutes while trying to end the lawsuit and complete the merger, a source told the outlet. While Paramount’s lawyers have claimed the president’s lawsuit has no chance of victory, Puck reported that Redstone is keen to settle the suit because Brendan Carr has said it will factor into his decision to approve the multi-billion dollar merger between Paramount and Skydance Media.
In a memo to staff announcing his resignation, Owens said that “over the past months, it has also become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it,” citing the Trump suit.
On Sunday, 60 Minutes host Scott Pelley called out his corporate bosses in a shocking on-air admission which alluded to the behind-the-scenes meddling which had led to Owens’ departure. “Stories we pursued for 57 years are often controversial,” Pelley said in a carefully-worded statement. “Lately, the Israel-Gaza war and the Trump administration. Bill made sure they were accurate and fair. He was tough that way. But our parent company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger.”
Noting that the “Trump administration must approve” the deal, Pelley then added: “Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways. None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires,” before concluding that “No one here is happy about it, but in resigning, Bill proved one thing. He was the right person to lead 60 Minutes all along.”
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