Bill Owens, executive producer of television’s most popular and influential newsmagazine since 2019, said in a note to staff that it has “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.”
“The show is too important to the country,” he wrote. “It has to continue, just not with me as the executive producer.”
At the same time, CBS parent Paramount Global, run by Shari Redstone, is seeking approval for a merger with Skydance Media, founded by Larry Ellison. They are reportedly in mediation to settle the lawsuit with Trump, a prospect that has been bitterly opposed by Owens and others at “60 Minutes.”
Actually I did use to watch it quite often.
My point was not that it dropped in quality, it’s just that it became slow to keep up with ongoing events with details and information readily available via basic OSINT on primary sources or even regular quality news outlets.
Ex: https://youtu.be/dRRJmOTCqqQ
Pretty much everything presented in this report was already well known and available for months, making the the rest essentially a PR moneyshot for the US Navy.
I still watch it occasionally for its direct interviews with select people, but it’s still a legacy production that struggles to keep up with info you can get even from AP or Reuters.
Mind you it’s still miles better than flaming trash like Washington Post or NYT, but I could easily see CBS axeing it years ago.