CBS News insiders fear Bari Weiss will soon enact ‘massive changes’ to 60 Minutes | C.B.S.

TOta time when viewers are fleeing conventional tv reveals, the (*60*) Sunday newsmagazine 60 Minutes stays in a category of its personal. The 12 April episode, which featured Pope Leo and a narrative about nice white sharks, drew an astonishing 10.1 million whole viewers. The present is trending because the most-watched information program for the present broadcast season. So, because the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, why repair it?

That’s what some C.B.S. News workers and veterans are questioning, amid persistent rumors that the present’s 59th season will look very totally different than the 58th, which ends on May 17.

The subsequent season of the US’s most prestigious information present will be the primary totally underneath the purview of Bari Weissthe controversial heterodox opinion author put in as editor-in-chief after Skydance Media formally accomplished its acquisition of CBS’s guardian, Paramount Global, in August 2025.

One longtime community insider mentioned to anticipate “massive changes” after the season ends, though the community is alleged to don’t have any plans to blow up the format or to change the present’s award-winning mission. Layoffs are broadly anticipated, nevertheless. “People [at 60 Minutes] “They are afraid and they’re waiting for something monumental to happen here,” mentioned one other community insider.

A CBS News staffer, who was not approved to remark, expressed concern that Weiss would make adjustments that may injury the present, “just like she has done with everything else at CBS News.”

A 3rd community insider cautioned, nevertheless: “They don’t want to turn it upside down.”

Still, the present’s solid will undoubtedly look totally different.

In February, corresponding Anderson Cooper announced he was leaving the show to spend extra time together with his household – and concentrate on the nightly present he anchors for CNN.

On April 30, one other outstanding 60 Minutes correspondent, Sharyn Alfonsi, strongly instructed that she is probably going to be “fired” earlier than subsequent season. Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington After being awarded the Ridenhour prize for braveness, Alfonsi decried “the spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear” on the community, though she did not instantly title Weiss, who precipitated a firestorm after shelving Alfonsi’s December 21 phase concerning the Trump administration deporting Venezuelans to a infamous jail in El Salvador. (Weiss had argued that the piece wanted to be reworked to higher convey the administration’s perspective.)

It was a unprecedented public rebuke from a present community worker, and though Alfonsi was channeling a sentiment shared by others at CBS News, it’s broadly presumed that she will not return to the present – a personnel choice that has the potential to trigger important backlash for Weiss and CBS News.

“If they don’t renew her, it is in direct retaliation for having the temerity to tell the truth,” Rome Hartman, a longtime 60 Minutes producer who retired final 12 months, mentioned in an interview. “I’ve worked with Sharon over many years. She knows herself, she stands up for herself, but she is nothing like a troublemaker. She’s a person that goes out and gets these stories and does them and puts herself at considerable risk doing them, and she just did what was right here and she’s paying a terrible price for that.”

Alfonsi’s possible departure might create a chilling impact for the correspondents who stay, a former 60 Minutes correspondent instructed the Guardian. “I just know that if I was there now, I would have a hard time knowing where the dial is, where the wind is blowing, what stories can you even suggest at the risk of alienating the powers that be,” mentioned the journalist, who requested anonymity to defend relationships. In the previous, “that was never the case. Ever. There wasn’t anything that was out of bounds.” A supply shut to the community pushed again on the notion that sure tales are off limits.

A CBS News declined to remark when requested about potential personnel strikes.

Even some exterior the corporate have shared fears concerning the present’s future. CNN’s chief worldwide anchor, Christiane Amanpour, last week expressed concern about Paramount Skydance’s chief government, David Ellison (and his father, billionaire Donald Trump for Larry Ellison), taking up the community, pointing to the “ideological realignment” of CBS News and “the destruction, potentially, of 60 Minutes.” “Nobody can match 60 Minutes for a brilliant television magazine show that’s been doing hard news and cultural news and for decades and decades – top-rated, top money-maker for the network,” she mentioned.

Insiders predict that Norah O’Donnell, the CBS News journalist who has served in a rotating corresponding position since giving up her perch as anchor of the CBS Evening News in 2025, could possibly be tapped to play a extra important position on 60 Minutes.

It was O’Donnell who obtained underneath Trump’s pores and skin throughout an April 26 interview for 60 Minutes when she learn from the manifesto of the person who allegedly tried a mass capturing on the annual White House correspondents’ dinner the day earlier than.

“I was waiting for you to read that, because I knew you would,” Trump instructed O’Donnell. “Because you’re horrible people. Horrible people… You shouldn’t be reading that on 60 Minutes. You’re a disgrace.”

Two longtime 60 Minutes correspondents, 84-year-old Lesley Stahl and 68-year-old Scott Pelley, are anticipated to stay with the present, at the same time as Pelley has been focused by conservatives for critical comments he has made concerning the Trump administration. Stahl reportedly lost out to CBS News journalist Major Garrett for an interview with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, that aired on final Sunday’s 60 Minutes, though it is not exceptional for a community corresponding to conduct such an interview, and Garrett obtained favorable critiques for his questioning. As she has with different main newsmaker interviews, Weiss participated within the reserving course of. “It’s the editor-in-chief’s job to make decisions about bookings and interviews,” a CBS News spokesperson mentioned. “Major is a world-class journalist and did a tough, fair and news-making interview.”

Weiss, who got here to CBS News in October with no expertise in tv, has not spoken publicly about her plans for a revamped 60 Minutes and has not granted interviews. But she mentioned her want to “expand” the 60 Minutes model during an employee town hall meeting in late January.

Calling 60 Minutes “one of the most important, valuable brands, not just to CBS News but to journalism in America,” Weiss mentioned: “I think it should be at the heart and center of what we do… The idea that that should just be something people are encountering for an hour on a Sunday night doesn’t make sense to me, especially when there’s so much love and devotion and trust in that brand.”

The community is predicted to search for alternatives to broaden the model’s attain and to embrace new platforms and codecs. (Some previous makes an attempt at increasing the model have been short-lived, together with a weeknight spinoff known as 60 Minutes II and one known as 60 Minutes Sports that ran on Showtime for only some years.)

During the city corridor, Weiss mentioned she can be “across” 60 Minutes’ editorial course of however wouldn’t be micromanaging it, leaving that to the chief producer, Tanya Simon (the daughter of the legendary 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon), and the chief editor, Draggan Mihailovich. “I have no interest in disrupting a productive culture that exists in a show or a department in this company,” Weiss mentioned.

But there are questions internally about how a lot sway Simon has over the present with Weiss extra closely concerned. In her remarks on April 30, Alfonsi instructed that Weiss had certainly meddled, and she or he recounted her unwillingness to change a phase that had already been screened and vetted. “My stance did not make my new bosses very happy,” Alfonsi mentioned.

The present’s 58th season already started with a significant change on the high, after Bill Owens – the longtime government producer and the third within the present’s historical past – opted to resign in protest of what he mentioned was company cowardice and meddling.

“Our owners were working to censor 60 Minutes, attempting to stop us from covering the difficult stories we had always brought to you,” mentioned Owens on April 30, after additionally receiving a Ridenhour prize for braveness. Upon taking up the present in 2019, Owens mentioned, his major objective was to not “harm a hair on the head of this broadcast.”

While a lot of the broader dialogue concerning the present has targeted on clashes and controversies, these shut to the present say its journalism has been rock-solid – and correspondents have proven no indicators of pulling punches – thus far.

“Just as a viewer, I think 60 Minutes has been 60 Minutes this season,” mentioned Hartman, the previous present producer. “I think it’s been a strong mix of hard stories and feature stories, which I think is what it has always aspired to be. And I think Tanya and the correspondents deserve a lot of credit for that.”

But, he added, “I am extremely worried that that will change.”

Michael J Socolow, a media historian on the University of Maine whose father was a outstanding government at CBS News, mentioned he was hesitant to touch upon 60 Minutes’ future as a result of he had beforehand expressed certainty that the present can be largely left untouched, an assertion that now appears inaccurate.

Still, he expressed confidence within the present’s senior management, most notably Simon – though his position as government producer was reportedly only contractually guaranteed for one 12 months.

He additionally famous that “the 60 Minutes brand has survived several controversies over the decades,” mentioning the 2013 suspension of Lara Logan, a 60 Minutes correspondentfor a discredited report on the 2012 Benghazi consulate assault, and the mishandling of an interview within the Nineties with tobacco trade whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand, an incident that Alfonsi mentioned – in her December memo to colleagues about Weiss pulling her El Salvadoran jail phase – ​​“nearly [destroyed] the credibility of this broadcast.”

“There have been issues in 60 Minutes’ history that damage the brand. There’s no question,” Socolow mentioned. “And it survives and it goes back.”