One of the longest-serving correspondents at “60 Minutes” hopes the departure of the newsmagazine’s top producer is enough to get the parent company of CBS News to give the show back its independence.
Lesley Stahl, who has worked on “60 Minutes” for 35 seasons and for CBS News since 1971, says the exit of Bill Owens, just the third executive producer in the seminal news program’s history, has left her “devastated,” she told Variety during an interview Tuesday. Owens “represented everything in a boss you could want.”
Owens, who has led the program since 2019, said in a meeting Tuesday that he had decided to leave the show and CBS News, citing an increasing lack of ability “to make independent decisions based on what was right for ’60 Minutes,’ right for the audience.”
He steps down as Paramount Global, the parent of CBS News, is eagerly pursuing a sale to Skydance Media, which executives believe has been complicated by a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump against the show and CBS News, alleging that “60 Minutes” tried to mislead voters by airing last year two different edits of remarks made in an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, then Trump’s rival for the White House. CBS sought to have the case thrown out, and many legal experts have expressed the notion that the suit’s legal standing is flimsy.
Executives at CBS “are committed to ’60 Minutes’ and to ensuring that the mission and the work remain our priority,” said Wendy McMahon, who oversees CBS News, stations and syndication operations, in a memo Tuesday. ” We have already begun conversations with correspondents and senior leaders, and those will continue in the days and weeks ahead.”
According to people familiar with the program, Paramount had set up outside monitors for the show’s various processes, putting the newsmagazine’s independence at risk. “I have been made aware of interference in our news processes, and calling into question our judgement,” says Stahl. “That is not the way that companies that own news organizations should be acting.”
Owens “just couldn’t abide the interference,” says Stahl. “We hope that this message reaches our bosses, that we have a reputation to uphold. It’s one of the reasons that CBS News is valuable. It’s what ’60 Minutes’ stands for, and we can’t lose that. We can’t afford to lose that. We have lost our boss because of it. It’s just crushing.”
Over the years, Stahl has demonstrated a proclivity to speak out in defense of the program. In March, while accepting an industry award, Stahl told those assembled that “60 Minutes” was “fighting for its life.” One of the producers at the newsmagazine who has worked closely with Stahl over the years once called her “Grandma Badass.”
Stahl said Owens urged staff to stay with the show and to keep “60 Minutes” alive. Tanya Simon, the executive editor of the program, is expected to take the reins of the newsmagazine on an interim basis, and is seen as a likely candidate to succeed Owens, according to people familiar with the show. The show is not expected to change any of the stories it planned to cover for the duration of the season, one of these people said.
CBS News told staffers Tuesday that it intended to name a new leader from within the company’s ranks, Stahl says. Simon is “a great newswoman,” Stahl says.
“I’m hoping that Bill’s sacrifice, as Scott Pelley called it, is a message that resonates and changes can be made,” she adds.
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