{"id":715613,"date":"2026-06-05T00:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T00:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/715613\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T00:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T00:24:09","slug":"60-minutes-boss-vows-to-pursue-stories-without-fear-or-favor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/715613\/","title":{"rendered":"’60 Minutes’ Boss Vows to ‘Pursue Stories Without Fear or Favor’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMaybe they will stay?<\/p>\n

\n\tThe new executive producer of \u201c60 Minutes<\/a>\u201d vowed in a memo Thursday to uphold the CBS News<\/a> property\u2019s commitment to pursue stories \u201cwithout fear or favor\u201d and to not be \u201cinstructed by the ownership of the company\u201d on sensitive reports, even as many at the Paramount Skydance news outlet continue to wonder if the show\u2019s remaining correspondents \u2014 Lesley Stahl<\/a>, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim \u2014 will remain with the program<\/a> following a broad hollowing out of its senior ranks.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe foundation of \u201960 Minutes\u2019 is its journalistic independence,\u201d wrote Nick Bilton<\/a>, who was named executive producer of the newsmagazine last week, adding: \u201cWe will always make the story the North Star \u2014 not relationships nor politics nor anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBilton, who has had command of the venerable news property for all of a week, is trying to keep the trio of correspondents on board. The three met with one another on Wednesday to consult over the state of the program and how they should deal with it, according to a person familiar with the matter, and Bilton and Stahl are said to have met for dinner Wednesday evening, this person says, where she peppered him with questions about how he intended to move forward. CBS News was not able to offer an immediate comment about the details of their meeting.<\/p>\n

\n\tBilton praised Stahl, Whitaker and Wertheim and said he had spent much time listening to them. \u201cWe talked about what makes \u201960 Minutes\u2019 exceptional, about the traditions and legacy of the past, about how you do the work that produces such momentous pieces,\u201d Bilton said. \u201cWe also talked about change: About new audiences, new platforms, and new ways of storytelling that these new audiences need. We\u2019ll speak more about that in the weeks to come.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tIn an interview with Variety last week, Bilton indicated that he was eager to do more than just a Sunday-night showcase. \u201cThe show is on the air one day, one night, one hour a week, and to me there is an incredible opportunity to take the show and do a lot of things with it,\u201d he said., <\/p>\n

\n\tBilton has replaced Tanya Simon, a longtime senior steward of the show and a daughter of one of its former correspondents, Bob Simon. Her deputy, Draggan Mihailovich, was also ousted, along with two of the show\u2019s correspondents, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. Anderson Cooper announced in February that he would not rejoin the program in its 59th season in the fall.<\/p>\n

\n\tMost shocking, however, has been the exit of correspondent Scott Pelley, who has, along with Stahl, been one of the correspondents most associated with the program. Pelley was terminated earlier this week <\/a>following a heated verbal exchange with Bilton at a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d town hall. Pelley pressed the new executive producer \u2014 and senior executives at CBS News \u2014 as to why his colleagues had been fired and whether they truly had the qualifications to produce the premium journalism that is associated with \u201c60 Minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDiscussion, debate and disagreement are essential to the making of good journalism,:\u201d Bilton said Thursday in his memo. \u201cAll will be done in good faith, and always with respect and trust-and with fidelity to the practices that have served us well for 58 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMaria Gravlovic, a producer who has been with CBS News since September of 2006, has been named a new senior producer of \u201c60 Minutes.\u201d Gravlovic had worked in the past with Pelley, including on a piece that ran during the show\u2019s 58th season premiere, in which the correspondent traveled to Utah to interview Spencer Cox, the state\u2019s Republican Governor.<\/p>\n

\n\tBilton pledged in his memo not to move the show away from its core routines. \u201cIt\u2019s the best hour of television journalism anywhere. We\u2019re going to continue to do the things we do that make it so great-the scheduled screenings, the detailed script work, the editing, the long format of the pieces,\u201d he said. \u201cI am a curious person and I love stories, and as executive producer I will shape the show writ large. I\u2019ll bat around ideas with you, I\u2019ll dive into scripts and edits with you, and I will sign off on pieces. The fearless correspondents and the intrepid producers will continue to be the core of each piece we broadcast.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maybe they will stay? The new executive producer of \u201c60 Minutes\u201d vowed in a memo Thursday to uphold…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[18026,49,48,30878,75,258409,257412,348],"class_list":["post-715613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-60-minutes","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cbs-news","tag-entertainment","tag-lesley-stahl","tag-nick-bilton","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}