It took less than a week for Nick Bilton, the new executive producer of \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d to land in the middle of a very public fight between the staff of the award-winning CBS News program and his new bosses at the network.<\/p>\n
Things were already tense between the staff and Bari Weiss, the editor in chief of CBS News, when she ousted the show\u2019s senior leadership and installed Mr. Bilton, a tech journalist and documentary filmmaker with no broadcast news experience.<\/p>\n
The shake-up on May 28 set off alarms among the investigative journalists at \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d famous for its competitive culture<\/a> and long history<\/a> of fighting with management.<\/p>\n Mr. Bilton\u2019s first meeting with that \u201ccage full of tigers,\u201d as Don Hewitt, the show\u2019s founder, once called the program and its journalists, drew some very sharp claws. The correspondent Scott Pelley attacked Mr. Bilton and Ms. Weiss, deriding his \u201cslender qualifications\u201d and accusing her of \u201cmurdering\u201d the show.<\/p>\n CBS News fired Mr. Pelley the next day, and Mr. Bilton, 49, scrambled to contain the fallout with a statement<\/a> proclaiming his commitment to journalistic independence. The question now is whether Mr. Bilton has the mettle to tame his crew and get it working in time for the new season in September.<\/p>\n A CBS spokesman declined to comment for this article.<\/p>\n \u2018An unconventional pick\u2019<\/p>\n Mr. Bilton\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9 looks vastly different from that of previous leaders of the nation\u2019s most-watched news program. He has never worked in television news or managed a large staff.<\/p>\n Mr. Bilton started his career in design. Born in Britain and educated in New York City at The New School and the School of Visual Arts, he first worked in film and advertising.<\/p>\n He joined The New York Times in 2003 as a designer and researcher. An interest in technology led to a job writing The Times\u2019s tech blog, Bits. He wrote a series of articles<\/a> questioning the Federal Aviation Administration\u2019s ban on the use of smartphones and Kindles during takeoff and landing, which helped lead the agency to change those rules.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s not done TV, but he\u2019s done storytelling,\u201d said Larry Ingrassia, a former business editor at The Times, for whom Mr. Bilton worked. \u201cHe\u2019s inquisitive. He\u2019s creative. He\u2019s entrepreneurial.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs this an unconventional pick? Yes,\u201d Mr. Ingrassia added. \u201cCould it be an inspired pick? Yes.\u201d<\/p>\n In one column, Mr. Bilton quoted a widely criticized anti-vaccine activist as a credible scientist. The Times issued an editors\u2019 note and a correction. Mr. Bilton later acknowledged he had \u201cscrewed up<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n He left The Times to become a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, where he wrote about tech, business and culture. He has also written two best-selling books: \u201cHatching Twitter\u201d and \u201cAmerican Kingpin,\u201d about the creator of Silk Road, the online black market.<\/p>\n Recently, Mr. Bilton has focused on screenwriting and filmmaking, writing and directing the 2021 HBO documentary \u201cFake Famous,\u201d executive producing the 2024 Netflix documentary \u201cBiggest Heist Ever\u201d and writing for the 2023 HBO series \u201cThe Idol,\u201d starring the Weeknd.<\/p>\n Mr. Bilton also has a film and a book in development about the Hawaiian mafia in collaboration with Dwayne \u201cThe Rock\u201d Johnson. (Martin Scorsese is set to direct the film.)<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time I\u2019ve ended up in all these different roles,\u201d Mr. Bilton said on a recent podcast<\/a>, \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018Whoa, like how did I end up here?\u2019 The mentality I always had was someone is going to tap me on the shoulder and go \u2018Time to go,\u2019 and so I\u2019ve got to do all the stuff I want to do until that happens.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018A notebook full of ideas\u2019<\/p>\n