If devoted viewers of “60 Minutes” weren’t previously aware of the behind-the-scenes network drama, they are now.
In the final minutes of the show’s Sunday evening broadcast, longtime correspondent Scott Pelley informed viewers that Bill Owens, the show’s executive producer since 2019, resigned last week, citing editorial interference by CBS’s parent company, Paramount.
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“Stories we’ve pursued for 57 years are often controversial — lately, the Israel-Gaza war and the Trump administration. Bill made sure they were accurate and fair — he was tough that way,” Pelley said. “But our parent company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger. The Trump administration must approve it. 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.”
Pelley mostly left himself out of the story. Still, he concluded sharply: “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.”
The closing scene was a rare rebuke of the forces in charge of CBS News and “60 Minutes,” the weekly show that has been on the air since 1968.
CBS News and Paramount did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Pelley’s on-air statement.
CBS has been embroiled in a fight with President Donald Trump since the fall. Trump sued “60 Minutes” for $20 billion, alleging that it deceptively edited an interview with his political opponent, Kamala Harris, then the vice president and Democratic nominee for president.
After Trump took office, Brendan Carr, his appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, reopened an investigation into CBS over alleged “news distortion” that was previously closed under his predecessor, Jessica Rosenworcel. CBS released transcripts and unedited videos of the interview in February, saying there was nothing amiss about the segment.
Meanwhile, Paramount has been trying to gain government approval for its merger with Skydance Media. But Carr has threatened to block the merger and others over what he has called “illegal DEI efforts.”
That’s where Owens’s critique comes in. While he was vague about the exact claims of interference, he wrote in a letter to employees last week that he lost faith in his ability to do his job independently.
“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,” he wrote. “To make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience.”
A previous version of this article misstated the length of Bill Owens’s tenure as executive producer of “60 Minutes.” He was hired for that role in 2019.
