Conservative columnist Ross Douthat is joining CBS’ “60 Minutes” as a correspondent.<\/p>\n
Douthat, a San Francisco native, has worked at the New York Times as an opinion columnist since 2009 and will leave that post to assume his new television role.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The newsmagazine’s 59th season is scheduled to premiere Sept. 13.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Ross is one of the preeminent public intellectuals in America today, a thinker of uncommon rigor and a journalist of deep empathy,” executive producer Nick Bilton said in his announcement Tuesday, July 28, as reported by CBS.<\/p>\n
Also added to the Sunday broadcast as correspondents or contributors are journalist and author Sebastian Junger, former VICE News correspondent Gianna Toboni and British broadcaster Trevor Phillips.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As previously announced, former “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell will also become a full-time “60 Minutes” correspondent.<\/p>\n
The new slate of hires comes after a staff overhaul in May under the network’s editor in chief, Bari Weiss, whom Paramount CEO David Ellison hired in October. Weiss had never worked in television before the role.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Weiss’ journalism background includes work for the opinion departments of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. She and Douthat overlapped at the Times’ Opinion section, where Weiss worked as an op-ed staff writer from 2017 to 2020, when she resigned.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She later co-founded the conservative-leaning media company the Free Press with her wife, Nellie Bowles, a San Francisco native and former Chronicle staffer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the conclusion of its 58th season in May, “60 Minutes” saw the departure of longtime correspondents Scott Pelley, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega<\/a>, along with former executive producers Tanya Simon and Draggan Mihailovich.\u00a0<\/p>\n Correspondent Anderson Cooper resigned soon after.\u00a0<\/p>\n Vega, a former Chronicle and ABC7 News correspondent who was raised in the East Bay, spoke out about her firing during a recent appearance at the the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Conference & Expo in New Orleans.\u00a0<\/p>\n She claimed that under new executives after Weiss’ appointment, she was pressured to report news events that “never happened” when covering the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis in January.\u00a0<\/p>\n Subscribe<\/p>\n There’s more to San Francisco with the Chronicle. Subscribe today for just 25\u00a2.<\/a><\/p>\n