60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley blasted the show’s parent company for currying favor with the Trump administration during a Sunday night broadcast.
He also firmly stood by the venerable newsmagazine’s former executive producer, who resigned last week in protest.
During the show’s “Last Minute” segment Sunday, Pelley addressed Bill Owens’ decision to leave the program by criticizing Paramount for closely supervising its content. Pelley claimed Paramount kept a close eye on 60 Minutes because it needed the Trump administration’s approval to finalize a business merger it hopes to reach with entertainment company Skydance Media.
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Owens—who had worked at CBS News for decades and served as the executive producer for its celebrated newsmagazine since 2019—announced his resignation from the program on April 22, claiming that upper-company ranks were interfering in his editorial process.
“Bill resigned Tuesday. It was hard on him and hard on us, but he did it for us and you,” Pelley said after recognizing Owens’ storied career as part of CBS News. “Stories we’ve pursued for 57 years were often controversial, lately the Israel-Gaza war and the Trump administration. Bill made sure they were accurate and fair—he was tough that way.”
“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,” Pelley continued. “None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”
“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,” he concluded.
When announcing his resignation last week, Owens said that it had “become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it.”
“To make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience,” he continued.
Another one of 60 Minutes’ longest-serving correspondents, Lesley Stahl, also told Variety in an interview last week that she had been “made aware of interference in our news processes and calling into question our judgement.”
“That is not the way that companies that own news organizations should be acting,” Stahl, who has worked on 60 Minutes for 35 seasons, continued.
Representatives at Paramount did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
60 Minutes is currently at the epicenter of a highly publicized defamation battle with President Donald Trump regarding an October 2024 interview with Kamala Harris.
At the time, Harris sat down with Face the Nation, another CBS News program, for an interview which aired on Sunday Oct. 6. Trump alleges that when sections of Harris’ interview aired the next day on 60 Minutes, her answer to a question about Israel was edited differently to what was broadcast on Sunday to make her look better.
He subsequently filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit, and amended it to $20 billion in February.
CBS and Owens have denied the claim.
Paramount has sought to settle the case, in large part to get the federal approval it needs to complete the merger with Skydance.
