Ellisons to Bari 60 Minutes

Oliver Darcy has more on Bari Weiss’s campaign to destroy the one remaining functioning part of CBS News as she turns it fully into a regime-aligned slop factory:

“They’re killing ‘60 Minutes.’”

That’s how the iconic newsmagazine’s former executive producer Bill Owens, who quit last summer citing corporate interference, put it to me by phone on Thursday as news broke about the firings ordered by the widely disliked and distrusted CBS News Editor-In-Chief Bari Weiss.

[…]

Thursday morning started much like any other for “60 Minutes” executive producer Tanya Simon.

Well, not quite. Under her leadership, the program had won two Emmys the night before. It had also just wrapped a season averaging 9.1 million viewers, up 9% from the previous year. On social media, the show added 17 million new followers across platforms and generated a staggering 2.5 billion views.

Which is to say that, despite the corporate forces destabilizing CBS News, Simon had led the show to new heights. And while she knew Weiss was plotting major changes, she did not know that Thursday, May 28, would be the day her 27-year run at the program came to an end.

That soon changed.

Simon was summoned into a meeting with Weiss and CBS News President Tom Cibrowski. In the meeting, which I am told was brief, she was relieved of her duties. In a memo sent to staffers afterward, Simon said it was “an immense privilege” to lead the show and that she was leaving “with tremendous respect for the outstanding journalism” it produces.

Immediately after Simon was ousted, the other firings began.

Charles Forelle, a top Weiss deputy who serves as managing editor of CBS News, phoned Sharyn Alfonsi, the “60 Minutes” correspondent whose contract had lapsed over the weekend, and informed her that she was officially being terminated by the network.

Cecilia Vega, the award-winning correspondent and first Latina on “60 Minutes,” whose contract was not set to expire until next year, also received a call from Forelle. In a Zoom meeting that lasted a mere one minute and 43 seconds, Forelle told Vega, “We are restructuring at ‘60 Minutes’ and your job has been impacted.”

Vega, who reported a piece on Israel’s war on Gaza last year that had rankled Paramount brass at the time, told me that her firing was “a complete shock.” A reason for her termination was not given to her on the phone and the network has not offered one publicly.

Other top staffers were additionally shown the door, including the show’s executive editor, Draggan Mihailovich. Also impacted were producers associated with Anderson Cooper’s farewell package, which we previously reported had infuriated Weiss.

As news of the firings spread internally and externally, Weiss and Cibrowski sent staffers a memo announcing Nick Bilton as the program’s next executive producer—only the fifth in the show’s decades-long history. Weiss and Cibrowski said that “60 Minutes,” despite performing exceptionally well by virtually every measure, “requires a new approach.” Notably, Bilton, a technology journalist, has no television news or managerial experience.

Bilton wrote his own memo to staffers, describing the technological changes that have transformed society since the early days of “60 Minutes.” He said he has a “notebook full of ideas” and wants to expand the franchise beyond a single hour of television each week. Bilton said he would meet with staffers and then, “in about thirty days,” report back to them.

Suffice it to say, Bilton’s note did not exactly win anyone over inside “60 Minutes.” Anxious staffers watched throughout the day as Simon and Mihailovich packed up their offices. Tears flowed openly in the newsroom. Staffers exchanged texts expressing not only heartbreak, but genuine anger at Weiss and Ellison for upending a program they treasure.

“They’re gutting us,” one “60 Minutes” staffer told Status. “It’s over. I don’t see how ‘60’ will be able to function after this.”

“Goodnight and good luck, motherfuckers,” the staffer added.

“Everyone—100% thought Tanya and Draggan did exemplary jobs,” another senior “60 Minutes” staffer told Status. “It hurts. We feel violated.”

Meanwhile, Lesley Stahl, the famed “60 Minutes” correspondent, headed into the offices in the early afternoon. I’m told she spent roughly 10 minutes speaking with distraught staffers. Stahl tried to rally the show’s team members, highlighting the importance of continuing to produce tough, meaningful journalism. But her remarks, I’m told, failed to lift spirits. Staffers remained entirely deflated and discouraged by the day’s events. And, after all, Simon, Alfonsi, and Vega had all produced deeply reported segments, only to be sent packing by Weiss.

The key here is Bilton, whose role seems to be similar to what Will Lewis did to the Washington Post. He seems just as lazy and disengaged as Lewis while also lacking even his formal qualifications:

If you’re having trouble remembering who Bilton is, that’s because he’s a specific type of dolt from a bygone era. There was a moment in the media industry in which one could build a lucrative career by being a guy with glasses and branding oneself as a tech reporter who “covers the intersection of technology and culture.” Bilton spent many years executing this maneuver at The New York Times, where he edged out some stiff competition to briefly claim the title of the paper’s worst columnist. His greatest hits include a column about the time he couldn’t find a pen, and one about the cancer risks presented by wearable technology that was so factually fucked, it now contains a 203-word editor’s note and a 98-word correction.

Bilton eventually left the Times for Vanity Fair, where he got busy pretending like he was the one who’d owned the Theranos story and getting all googly-eyed over the Apple Vision Pro, which he promised was “taking us into the future, into a new era of computing.” I guess technically the jury’s still out on that one.

But hey, who’s to say that Bilton isn’t cut out to run 60 Minutes just because he’s never worked in broadcast news and has the résumé of a boring guy who is constantly wrong? Maybe he’s grown a lot. If you want to judge him on his current merits, you can read the memo he sent to 60 Minutes staffers after his hiring was announced. It spends several paragraphs explaining the concept of linear time and includes the sentence, “Every part of how we lived back then has been transformed since then.”

Definitely seems like someone who will not cast off talent lightly, but heave it away with great force, which is precisely his job.