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This article was featured in New York\u2019s One Great Story<\/a> newsletter.\u00a0Sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n On the last Thursday of May, Tanya Simon\u2019s staff packed up her office. They filled boxes with personal items accumulated over more than 25 years at 60 Minutes: Emmys, photos with celebrity interviewees such as Eminem, and portraits of the show\u2019s legendary correspondents, including her father, Bob Simon. Tanya Simon had grown up at the show and for the past year had led it as executive producer. That morning, she was called into a meeting with her bosses, CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss<\/a> and CBS News president Tom Cibrowski, at 8:30 a.m., a strange time, given the standing CBS News 9 a.m. editorial meeting. She had been told to prepare for an autopsy of the season that had just concluded \u2014 to go over what went right, what went wrong \u2014 and to keep an open mind. Instead, she was fired. As she left 555 West 57th Street that evening, teary-eyed, her colleagues lined the hallways and applauded. \u201cThe last thing she said before the door closed behind her was \u2018I fought so hard,\u2019\u201d one former staffer recalls.<\/p>\n Simon\u2019s deputy, executive editor Draggan Mihailovich, was also fired that day, along with two producers, Guy Campanile and Matthew Polevoy, and two on-air correspondents, Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi. (Campanile\u2019s dismissal took place over Zoom as he was scheduled to leave for the airport to report a story with correspondent Lesley Stahl in Spain. Charles Forelle, one of Weiss\u2019s deputies, told Campanile that, even though he was no longer a part of 60 Minutes, he could still shoot the segment if he wanted to. Campanile, shocked, declined Forelle\u2019s offer.) The culling would quickly come to be known within the company as Black Thursday.<\/p>\n The future came in the form of Nick Bilton<\/a>, Simon\u2019s replacement, a technology journalist with no broadcast-television experience. Bilton arrived with all the subtlety of a dinosaur-killing asteroid. \u201cI am here because the world outside this building has changed a lot since this show was conceived \u2014 and we have to talk honestly about what that means,\u201d Bilton wrote in a memo to staff. \u201cI\u2019m here to lead this show, not preserve it under glass.\u201d Bilton\u2019s past crimes against journalism \u2014 credibly quoting<\/a> a vaccine skeptic, claiming to break<\/a> the Theranos scandal \u2014 were dredged up and recirculated, while media newsletters obsessed with Weiss\u2019s moves went to work publishing staff complaints that she was wrecking the show as a favor to the Trump administration.<\/p>\n The scandal exploded on Monday at Bilton\u2019s first all-staff meeting. He and Weiss had been trying to reach Scott Pelley<\/a> all weekend, desperate to placate one of their last remaining stars, but Pelley had been ignoring their calls. He showed up at the meeting dressed in a suit and tie and alligator shoes, ready to put on a performance. He tore into the new boss over his \u201cslender qualifications\u201d for the job, claimed Weiss was \u201cmurdering 60 Minutes,\u201d and paced around as he sipped from a coffee mug. Pelley was fired the next day. With the departure of Anderson Cooper in May, that left the show with just three correspondents: Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and Jon Wertheim, who, after staying quiet for a few days, announced their decision to remain in a joint memo. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to see 60 Minutes die,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n Black Thursday and its aftermath were the culmination of months of conflict between Weiss and the staff of the most successful news show in the history of American television. At first, some at 60 Minutes were optimistic about her appointment: The business of broadcast news was in need of innovation, and Weiss had been brought to CBS News by Paramount owner David Ellison<\/a> in 2025 as a change agent, occupying the newly created position of editor-in-chief. Some at 60 Minutes were even fans of The Free Press, the heterodox \u201canti-woke\u201d outlet Weiss founded in 2021. \u201cPeople don\u2019t talk about their politics here,\u201d says one staffer. \u201cIt\u2019s not this lefty, progressive place.\u201d Almost instantly, however, the show was experiencing something like organ rejection. For the staff, Weiss at best was making poor, rash decisions because of a lack of television experience; at worst she was there to help Ellison get regulatory approval for Paramount\u2019s merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. \u201cWhat happened was not editorial disagreement; it was a hostile takeover,\u201d says a former 60 Minutes staffer. \u201cThe people making decisions at CBS News do not know what they\u2019re doing. This is amateur hour.\u201d<\/p>\n And yet, since the firings, producers and correspondents from CBS News have been lobbying heavily for a spot. \u201cThere\u2019s this public condemnation of what\u2019s going on, but privately and quietly, a lot of us are saying, \u2018It\u2019s about fucking time,\u2019\u201d says one CBS News staffer. \u201cNot for the leadership in the place to go down \u2014 Tanya was beloved \u2014 but she did represent a 60 that wasn\u2019t open to other people. Privately, a lot of correspondents feel like, Huh, maybe my chance is coming now.\u201d<\/p>\n While nearly everyone agrees Weiss & Co. could have probably handled things better, there\u2019s a sense that changes at 60 Minutes were always going to be excruciatingly difficult. The very notion of an editor-in-chief was seen as an imposition. As the crown jewel at the Tiffany Network, the newsmagazine program had so much clout that it was literally located across the street from its parent company at 524 West 57th Street, which over time resulted in an idiosyncratic, insular culture that would have been tough for any incoming executive to crack. \u201cTweaking or changing or improving 60 Minutes is like defusing a bomb: You\u2019ve got to move cautiously, and you must avoid cutting the wrong wire, because the thing will blow up in your face,\u201d says a longtime network executive.<\/p>\n Now that the bomb has gone off so spectacularly, Weiss and Bilton have spent the summer rebuilding the show and preparing for the debut of its 59th season in September, all while much of the staff took its traditional July recess. Late last month, Bilton announced a slate of new correspondents and contributors, including CBS\u2019s longtime anchor Norah O\u2019Donnell and the conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat \u2014 a personal coup for Weiss, who rose to notoriety at the Times\u2019 \u201cOpinion\u201d section. It\u2019s also a coup for the new 60 Minutes: On his Interesting Times podcast, Douthat showed that he could land sought-after interviews with the likes of Vice-President J.D. Vance and Peter Thiel and was the rare Times columnist who commanded respect across the political spectrum. (The Times was so invested in the show that, just before he quit, the furniture arrived for the in-home podcast setup that the Times had built for him in New Haven.) And in August, Bilton announced that New Yorker writer Ariel Levy would come on as a contributor, another hire that seems to be taking 60 Minutes in a brainier, more highbrow direction.<\/p>\n What comes next will either vindicate the staff\u2019s suspicions of Weiss or lay bare an uncomfortable fact: that 60 Minutes, as it existed under Simon, wasn\u2019t much worth fighting for.<\/p>\n In 1968, CBS News veteran Don Hewitt created 60 Minutes in an effort to bring a version of Life magazine to television, utilizing a mix of serious investigative pieces and lighter celebrity interviews. Hewitt essentially wanted to create mini-documentaries. \u201cI began to think we could make a three-subject hour and package it as attractively as Hollywood packages fiction,\u201d he once said, \u201cand also make the stories reporter-oriented, because I had noticed that what people liked most in newspapers was certain columnists or certain writers\u2019 bylines. I thought if we could make personal journalism, people would watch.\u201d<\/p>\n 60 Minutes has always been an island. It was Hewitt who positioned the operation across the street, where it became rooted in its own institutional knowledge and hierarchy. \u201cThey are a priesthood. Go up to the 14th floor; it\u2019s like entering a cloister,\u201d says one longtime network executive. \u201cThey swear fealty to one another and to the mission.\u201d Sometimes other CBS producers wouldn\u2019t know that the show had a big get until the last minute. A former CBS News journalist recalls how using a clip from 60 Minutes for another show required going through eight levels of approval.<\/p>\n People spend many years as associate producers before getting promoted to producer. Until Weiss came along, the executive-producer role had been a master-to-apprentice transition. There have only been five over the course of the show\u2019s 58-year history: Hewitt, Jeff Fager (who was Hewitt\u2019s prot\u00e9g\u00e9), Bill Owens (Fager\u2019s deputy), Simon (Owens\u2019s deputy), and now Bilton. A photo of Hewitt from 1986 shows him pointing at his laughing correspondents; when Owens was photographed in his own office 37 seasons later, he, too, was surrounded by laughing correspondents and pointing. Some pieces of the furniture in the office are hand-me-downs, including a desk that belonged to Morley Safer and chairs from the original screening room. Artwork and editorial cartoons that once decorated Ed Bradley\u2019s and Mike Wallace\u2019s walls now hang in other people\u2019s offices, and Fager\u2019s list of forbidden words and phrases \u2014 newsspeak like \u201cWe sat down with\u201d \u2014 remain on the wall in the screening room. \u201cThe objects reminded us of our responsibility to protect the legacy and serve our viewers,\u201d says a former 60 Minutes staffer. \u201cWe all felt it was important to keep connections to the past.\u201d<\/p>\n It can also be a snake pit. \u201cInternal competition was one of the things that sharpened 60 Minutes as an institution,\u201d says Rome Hartman, a former longtime producer of the show. Correspondents and their producer teams have fought bitterly over stories and at times stolen them from each other. In the early \u201970s, Safer was set to interview the president of Haiti and was about to leave for his flight when he found out that Wallace was already in the country, conducting the interview. \u201cProducer Harry Radliffe once described the place as a bunch of teams set up as terrorist cells, \u2018ruthlessly and secretly operating in complete isolation.\u2019 But actually 60 Minutes is a pretty collegial and collaborative place,\u201d Fager writes in his book. \u201cPart of the magic of 60 Minutes is the process, and part of that process is the competitiveness,\u201d a former CBS News producer says.<\/p>\n Excellence is also sustained through the screening process, which \u201ccan be brutal \u2014 almost as if they are designed to make you feel like shit,\u201d says the producer. Historically, once green-lit, correspondents and their producers work in isolation on a story. They screen their story for superiors after the piece is made and are then peppered with questions and feedback. A story is typically screened three times, sometimes more for a sensitive story. \u201cBy the end, you\u2019re so worn out and destroyed,\u201d says one 60 Minutes staffer. \u201cAssociate producers in particular pull all-nighters to respond to the notes.\u201d But the results speak for themselves. \u201cThere\u2019s a consistent look and production quality to 60. It\u2019s like Ivory soap: You always know what you\u2019re getting when you open the box,\u201d says a former CBS News journalist.<\/p>\n \u201cNot being able to tell 60 Minutes what to do has been the story for as long as time,\u201d says a former 60 Minutes staffer. \u201cThat\u2019s a feature, not a bug, and it\u2019s worked.\u201d For more than four decades, it was the newsmaking destination of choice for presidents, athletes, and celebrities. This was where Bill and Hillary Clinton went to address Gennifer Flowers\u2019s allegations of infidelity; where a former teammate revealed Lance Armstrong had used performance-enhancing drugs; where Stormy Daniels detailed her affair with Donald Trump. The show\u2019s investigations led to exonerations, indictments, and culture-defining moments. 60 Minutes has been the top-rated news program on television for 52 straight years. This season, under Simon\u2019s leadership, the show was up 9 percent from the prior year, averaging 9.1 million viewers.<\/p>\n But everyone concedes that broadcast television as a whole is in irreversible decline. \u201cThe story of CBS is the story of people kicking the can down the road, deferring pain,\u201d says one network insider. And the latter-day version of 60 Minutes has grown notably soft. The show pioneered a kind of television journalism that utilized hidden cameras, undercover correspondents, deeply sourced investigations, and hard-hitting interviews. Michael Mann made a whole movie about it. Now, Cecilia Vega was devoting two segments to the sherpas of Mount Everest and her ten-day journey to base camp. \u201cWhat was the fucking point of that?\u201d one CBS staffer asks. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to go, climb Everest.\u201d This past season included stories on the perfume capital of the world, the only active rare-earth mine in the U.S., and a dog study that may help pets and humans age well. Weiss thought the visual language of the show could evolve beyond sit-down interviews and walk-and-talks; she recently discussed filming a story that would open with footage shot on GoPros.<\/p>\n Simon\u2019s detractors also say the recent bump in ratings can mostly be attributed to 60 Minutes\u2019s place on the Sunday-night lineup right after football, which last year had its best regular season since 1989 with a 10 percent jump in viewership; that, factored in with changes Nielsen made in 2025 to its methodology, brings last season\u2019s growth down to around 5 percent. And even with the NFL lead-in, the show still pretty much reaches only one audience: The average age of a 60 Minutes viewer is 67.<\/p>\n Weiss felt there were more things 60 Minutes could be doing \u2014 with social media, live events, and the main broadcast itself \u2014 to reach new viewers and remain relevant. \u201cWhen you go out and look for the future Lesley Stahls, the future Diane Sawyers \u2014 they mostly don\u2019t exist in legacy news organizations,\u201d says one network insider. \u201cThey\u2019ve been building YouTube channels or podcasts and newsletters, and they have bigger followings.\u201d Unfortunately for Weiss, any such innovations have so far been totally eclipsed by her dysfunctional relationship with her new employees.<\/p>\n Weiss never took the opportunity to meet with the entire 60 Minutes staff when she started in October 2025 and wouldn\u2019t introduce herself to some of the correspondents until she was in screenings with them later in the season. And the meetings she did take were controversial. In her first two weeks on the job, Weiss asked senior staff why much of the country thinks the legacy press\u2019s coverage is biased. At the same meeting, Campanile, who was later fired on Black Thursday, asked her view of the settlement CBS News reached with the Trump administration over a lawsuit claiming the show had deceptively edited an interview with Kamala Harris \u2014 charges widely believed to have no merit. Weiss declined to comment, noting her answer could be leaked. \u201cIt was a litmus test she failed from the jump,\u201d a former 60 Minutes staffer says. \u201cStaff were stunned she didn\u2019t have a clear answer that supported the journalists that she now managed.\u201d<\/p>\n Weiss plunged into the show\u2019s operations. She was personally involved in booking guests \u2014 unusual for top network brass \u2014 including Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. At the end of her first month, she traveled to Mar-a-Lago to observe O\u2019Donnell\u2019s interview with Trump, the first since he\u2019d sued the network, and met the president for the first time. In December, Weiss personally screened a piece by Cooper in which he traveled to South Africa to investigate Trump\u2019s claims of a \u201cwhite genocide\u201d against Afrikaner farmers, a narrative that the segment ultimately debunked.<\/p>\n Later that month, Weiss, at the last minute, pulled a story by Sharyn Alfonsi on the Trump administration\u2019s deportations of Venezuelan migrants to CECOT, the notorious El Salvadoran prison. She felt that the Trump administration\u2019s rationale for the deportations was not adequately represented and, on the Friday before the broadcast, asked producers to add an interview with Stephen Miller or another Trump official. Weiss\u2019s intervention prompted Alfonsi to write<\/a> an email to colleagues that alleged Weiss \u201cspiked\u201d the story \u201cfor political optics.\u201d The piece eventually ran on January 18 with no significant changes. Weiss publicly acknowledged the controversy during a town hall with CBS News. \u201cThat specific logistical nightmare \u2014 that\u2019s never going to happen again,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n It was around this time that, Pelley would later allege, Weiss urged him to inject \u201cfalsehoods and bias\u201d into a segment on the killing of Minneapolis protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti by ICE and CBP agents. Vega later claimed that executives had asked her, among other things, to add footage showing protesters attacking people in plain clothes incorrectly identified as ICE agents but found \u201cno credible examples\u201d of such behavior at the time. CBS News disputed both of their claims.<\/p>\n For Weiss\u2019s critics at 60 Minutes and beyond, her behavior presented a clear case of political interference on behalf of the Trump administration. Weiss and her defenders insist that, while she is more conservative than many people at 60 Minutes, the issue was not political \u2014 it was managerial. Weiss grew exasperated by the constant pushback. \u201cShe got very upset that Tanya wouldn\u2019t consider stories Bari thought were worthy of the broadcast,\u201d says one former 60 Minutes staffer. \u201cTanya would explain, \u2018Well that\u2019s not a 60 story; that\u2019s an Evening News story.\u2019\u201d A network insider describes the attitude slightly differently:\u201cThat\u2019s not how we do things, and I don\u2019t want to be the one to break precedent.\u201d Weiss wanted to go down lanes the show hadn\u2019t before \u2014 to, say, spotlight a religious revival among young Catholics by sending a correspondent on one of their pilgrimages or a story on surrogacy, the latter of which was met with hesitation owing to concerns it would offend gay couples. Meanwhile, correspondents were openly disparaging her in messages to staff that were leaked to the public, often via the media newsletters devoted to publishing even minuscule developments at 60 Minutes and CBS News. Weiss\u2019s closest allies reportedly began referring to the ceaseless criticisms of her as \u201cBari Derangement Syndrome.\u201d<\/p>\n It became clear that many of the show\u2019s staffers were not only opposed to Weiss\u2019s politics or editorial suggestions but the very existence of an editor-in-chief who could tell them what to do. \u201cImagine if 60 was a separate country inside CBS, where they\u2019re using horses and carriages and they\u2019re operating in this kind of older way. And Bari\u2019s like, \u2018Oh my God, guys, there are these things called cars; you don\u2019t need the horse and carriage anymore.\u2019 And they\u2019re like, \u2018But we use the horse and carriage. It gets us where we need to go, and it\u2019s great,\u2019\u201d says one network insider. \u201cThere is no media institution in America that has a philosophy of \u2018That\u2019s not how we do it\u2019 more than 60.\u201d She came to feel that this was not the right leadership team to build the new 60 Minutes and started to mull a change.<\/p>\n Simon held meetings with small groups of producers in which she tried to assure people of the sustainability of the show. \u201cShe was very frank about the difficulties that she was facing,\u201d says a staffer who attended one such meeting. But she also tried to convey that she and Mihailovich, her deputy, had established a working relationship with Weiss. \u201cBill\u2019s approach was \u2018Don\u2019t let anybody in the door. This place needs to be sacred,\u2019\u201d says another former staffer (referring to Owens), who departed before Weiss\u2019s arrival, citing a loss of editorial independence stemming from the impending settlement with the Trump administration. \u201cTanya\u2019s approach was more cerebral and diplomatic: Let\u2019s try to work with these people.\u201d Weiss could seem scattered, bouncing off the wall with ideas and suggestions. Says one 60 Minutes staffer, \u201cTanya was obviously trying to make management happy while still doing what she knew was right for the show. At times it could be frustrating because she would say things that we felt were influenced by Bari. She started asking questions in screenings like, \u2018I mean, do you think we\u2019ve gone far enough?\u2019 Which is fine, but you could tell she was getting pushed.\u201d<\/p>\n Weiss struggled to adapt to the rhythms of the show; at times a segment almost didn\u2019t make it to air because she had requested changes so late in the process. (At one point, a CBS News executive advised Simon to have a backup episode ready to go, just in case.) \u201cIt feels like utter incompetence,\u201d says one former CBS News journalist. \u201cYou have to be uniquely capable and adept at the intricacies of television to be able to put a political heavy hand on. They may want to, but they\u2019re not even close to that \u2014 they don\u2019t understand the basic blocking and tackling yet.\u201d And she didn\u2019t know what she didn\u2019t know, says a current 60 Minutes staffer. \u201cShe\u2019s a print person and doesn\u2019t understand how it works, and she never seemed to give a shit enough to try and learn, which I think is what rubbed people the wrong way.\u201d<\/p>\n But the staff weren\u2019t eager to help her get her sea legs. On multiple occasions, Weiss and her deputies tried to be involved earlier in the process of a story and were told that it was still being worked on \u2014 only to, at the end of the week, get an invitation to the fourth screening.<\/p>\n In February, news broke that Cooper would not be renewing his contract with 60 Minutes after nearly 20 years at the show \u2014 a decision that Weiss felt she hadn\u2019t been sufficiently looped in on. \u201cAnderson\u2019s decision to leave followed the difficulties around the South African piece and the CECOT controversy,\u201d says a person familiar with his thinking. \u201cHe didn\u2019t want to have anything to do with the chaos.\u201d CBS had tried to keep him with a smorgasbord of options \u2014 an expanded role both at 60 Minutes and across CBS News that would effectively make him the face of the network, money \u2014 to no avail.<\/p>\n In March, Weiss booked Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for an interview and assigned the piece to Major Garrett, the CBS News chief Washington correspondent. She directed the interview to run on 60 Minutes despite Garrett\u2019s being outside the show\u2019s roster. Then, in May, Weiss personally booked an interview with Benjamin Netanyahu and again assigned it to Garrett, even though Weiss was aware that Stahl had for months been pursuing an interview with the Israeli prime minister. Simon pushed back against the Garrett assignment, but Weiss had made up her mind.<\/p>\n Later that month, Cooper taped his final episode. He also taped an exit interview with 60 Minutes Overtime, which offers a behind-the-scenes look, that had some parting words for the new leadership. \u201cI hope 60 Minutes remains 60 Minutes,\u201d he said. Weiss was furious she wasn\u2019t given a heads-up.<\/p>\n At the end of January, Bilton flew to New York to meet with Martin Scorsese, who is set to direct a movie based on a book Bilton co-wrote with Dwayne \u201cthe Rock\u201d Johnson. While in town, Bilton and his wife visited Weiss and her wife, Nellie Bowles, at their apartment; they\u2019d become pals during Weiss\u2019s time in Los Angeles, where she established The Free Press. The media coverage of Weiss had been relentless, and she expressed frustration with the opposition she was facing from staffers at CBS. Bilton, who like Weiss is something of a contrarian Energizer bunny, offered her some advice on how to handle an upcoming company all hands.<\/p>\n Weiss began to think she could use someone like Bilton at 60 Minutes. She was drawn to his mix of journalism and documentary experience and his eye toward the future \u2014 how to extend the\u00a0brand beyond linear television and ways to visually refresh the program. She\u2019d also come to feel that she needed an executive producer who was more of a story generator than Simon, and Bilton struck her as an idea-a-minute person. Come spring, she gauged his interest in taking over. \u201cAt first I wasn\u2019t \u2014 You know, I\u2019ve got this crazy Hollywood career, and I thought to myself, Well, you know, I love what I\u2019m doing. But the more I thought about it, I literally couldn\u2019t get 60 out of my head,\u201d Bilton told<\/a> the Washington Post. He presented his ideas to Weiss and the way he\u2019d approach the gig \u2014 he wanted a new generation of correspondents, harder-hitting stories, an entirely new digital strategy \u2014 and they were aligned; so too, apparently<\/a>, was Ellison, among those Bilton met with prior to his appointment. Bilton started figuring out how to move his family and two dogs from Los Angeles to New York.<\/p>\n After the Pelley blowup, Bilton spent his first few weeks meeting with staff, trying to convince them that he wasn\u2019t going to turn the show into a series of made-for-TikTok segments. He promoted longtime producer Maria Gavrilovic, who had worked closely with Pelley for years, to senior producer, effectively making her his second-in-command. \u201cThere was a little bit of a sense of betrayal because she had been brought up by the people who were fired, but there was also relief because she knows the drill,\u201d says a former 60 Minutes producer. Bilton is building an investigations unit made up of about six staffers, a mix of current employees and new hires, whose role will be to look into ideas that Bilton, Weiss, producers, and others have that could then be assigned to a correspondent.<\/p>\n He\u2019s also working on revamping the system for assigning stories. Pitching a story at 60 Minutes begins by submitting a proposal known as a \u201cblue sheet,\u201d named for the color of the paper that producers used in Hewitt\u2019s day. Blue sheets have also functioned as a way to call dibs on a story idea \u2014 even if, say, a producer didn\u2019t yet have access to the subject they wanted to interview. Weiss started to understand \u201cwhat was going to be on the show,\u201d says a veteran 60 staffer. \u201cThat has never happened \u2014 that an outsider, somebody from across the street, determines what stories are going to be shot or what stories are going to be on the air on any given week.\u201d Since firing Simon, she has gotten even more involved in the show\u2019s day-to-day editorial decisions, not only reviewing all story ideas but at times assigning them to correspondents. \u201cIf you were running a newsroom and you were the editor, wouldn\u2019t you think that the editor-in-chief would want to at least read the cover story every week? This is 60\u2019s version of that,\u201d says a network executive. \u201cThe idea that she would not be overseeing the most important brand that is seen by many millions of people at the premiere \u2014 of course she\u2019s going to do that.\u201d Bilton has killed 200 blue sheets after reviewing them with staff. He is now building an AI platform to better organize legitimate story ideas.<\/p>\n July is when 60 Minutes staffers historically take their vacations, a tradition Bilton was loath to upend given his uncertain standing with his new charges. So he spent the month in a mostly empty office, meeting with producer candidates, screen-testing potential correspondents, and discussing new ways to shoot stories with cameramen. He is planning to bring back Andy Rooney\u2013style closing commentaries and has reached out to Stephen A. Smith and John McEnroe, among others, about the gig. The idea is that a handful of people will each contribute to a few episodes over the course of the season. Bilton has also been working on a digital-strategy presentation that includes simplifying the way the show is branded to make it cohesive across broadcast, digital, and audio and making greater use of its archive on social media when relevant to the current news cycle. Repackaging previous segments on Lindsey Graham, for example, or the World Cup have generated tens of millions of views. He\u2019s toying with the idea of regularly putting entire interviews online or turning them into podcasts in addition to cutting them down for 13-minute segments. But the upcoming season 59 is likely going to be similar to previous seasons. Season 60, on the other hand, will supposedly be a different beast \u2014 assuming Bilton lasts that long.<\/p>\n Douthat\u2019s hire, among others, was announced at the end of July. The pitch to him was relatively straightforward: If you\u2019re already doing an interview television show, why not do it on a bigger stage with a more varied audience? Douthat was in England with his five children during the recent heat wave when he discussed this with Weiss, mulling his future from multiple un-air-conditioned Airbnbs, covered in sweat.<\/p>\n In August, Bilton welcomed staff back from their vacations in an email that contained housekeeping notes, including a new digital storyboard that updates in real time with what staff are working on, because \u201cthere is no reason in 2026 we should be tracking the No. 1 show in news using a dry erase marker.\u201d He also extended his hand in friendship: Stop by his new office and say \u201chello\u201d but \u201cplease don\u2019t judge the furniture,\u201d he said, explaining that he \u201cstole it from the cafeteria and the hallway.\u201d He struck a more combative tone on other subjects: \u201cSince I started here there has been roughly a rumor a day. About me, about you, about what\u2019s coming next \u2014 95 percent of them are fabrications and blatantly incorrect. I no longer have the time or the patience for them, and I\u2019d rather we spend that energy on the stories.\u201d The email was leaked almost immediately.<\/p>\n One Great Story: A Nightly Newsletter for the Best of New York<\/p>\n The one story you shouldn\u2019t miss today, selected by\u00a0New York\u2019s editors.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n