With a shellshocked staff and several open correspondent offices, Nick Bilton is trying to find a way forward for “60 Minutes.”
With a shellshocked staff and several open correspondent offices, newly appointed executive producer Nick Bilton is trying to find a way forward for “60 Minutes.”
On Thursday, Bilton wrote a memo to staff trying to reassure them that he shares their values and vision.
“The foundation of 60 Minutes is its journalistic independence. We will always pursue stories without fear or favor,” he wrote. “We will always make the story the North Star — not relationships nor politics nor anything else.”
The past week of dreadful headlines has shown that many people doubt Bilton and Bari Weiss can uphold the newsmagazine’s reputation. Some believe that’s by design, that the show has been poisoned on purpose. Scott Pelley sure thinks so.
A CBS spokesperson rebutted that in a new statement on Wednesday, and Bilton did the same on Thursday. But the real statement will come in September when the new season of “60 Minutes” premieres.
“We’re acutely aware that the premiere has to be a banger,” a well-placed CBS source remarked.
Right now, it remains unclear whether the three remaining correspondents — Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim — will return for Season 59. The CBS News management team is working hard to convince them to stay.
As Status first reported, the trio met for more than an hour on Wednesday to talk through everything that’s happened since last week, when Tanya Simon and other top producers were ousted along with Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega.
Pelley, Alfonsi and Vega have all levied charges of editorial interference by CBS bosses. So the remaining correspondents want and need assurances.
Bilton seemingly tried to provide some in his memo on Thursday. He also praised Stahl, Whitaker and Wertheim in detail, saying, “Lesley, Bill and Jon are core to this show’s success… Audiences trust them because they have proved it, story by story, for decades.”
He also wrote that “it should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: We will never be instructed by the ownership of the company on those stories.”
Amid widespread speculation about CBS parent company Paramount’s possible political motivations in reshaping “60 Minutes,” a CBS News spokesperson said, “There is no political interference at CBS News, not from ownership, not from Bari Weiss. The only ‘interference’ is the normal back and forth between editor and correspondent that happens in every newsroom.”
Behind the scenes, Bilton has been holding back-to-back meetings with the correspondents and producers, acknowledging the awful state of affairs at the show and committing to turning things around.
A very optimistic CBS source told me it’s “full speed ahead” at the show. It basically has to be; the Season 59 premiere date is September 13. (Last year, the premiere date was September 28, but it’s two weeks earlier this year owing to the NFL schedule.)
Veterans of the show — who know what it takes to produce three mini-documentaries a week — are skeptical, to say the least.
“It seems almost impossible for me to imagine what kind of a show they can put on in September,” former “60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Kroft told New York magazine’s Michael Calderone.
But someone must imagine it. So producers are brainstorming investigations for the forthcoming season. Agents are pitching clients for the open correspondent roles. Editors are getting back to work on the summertime episodes that feature repurposed stories from last season. (It’s unclear if any of Pelley’s stories will re-air.)
Staffers might be wondering what the new boss wants. So I think this is an important bit of reporting: Bilton has welcomed story pitches about President Trump and the Trump administration, and several such stories are in the early stages of development for Season 59, two of the sources said.
“Bari and Bilton have something to prove,” The Hollywood Reporter’s Alex Weprin remarked about the “60 Minutes” reboot.
Deadline’s Dominic Patten surveyed the attitudes inside CBS and found that many “fault Weiss and her new-ish team for their handling of the situation.”
He also noted, however, that there is a “contingent inside CBS News and the overall network that views some of the changes Weiss has instigated as long overdue for a 21st century media organization. ‘People at CBS News, both talent and staff, are not big fans of 60 being so siloed,’ we heard. ‘They believe it needs to be integrated into the larger newsroom.’”
Wednesday night’s “CBS Evening News” featured a reported piece on Pelley’s firing, with senior correspondent Jim Axelrod highlighting Pelley’s 37-year tenure and recounting “a tumultuous three days for CBS News,” including the back-and-forths between Pelley, Weiss and Bilton.
After that, Tony Dokoupil paid tribute to Pelley, calling him “a man from another era” who “valued truth at all costs, and always kept alive the memory of colleagues killed in the field.” He concluded: “Scott, from all of us, thank you.”
“Credit where credit’s due,” Zeteo’s Justin Baragona, a frequent critic of Weiss-era CBS, wrote. “CBS Evening News ran a fair and transparent story.”
This story has been updated with additional reporting.