CBS News Falls to Trump: The Shocking Resignation of Bill Owens

[Celerity]

How corporate pressure and a $10 billion Trump lawsuit against “60 Minutes” gutted one of America’s most trusted news programs.

https://newrepublic.com/article/194368/60-minutes-trump-bill-owens

https://archive.ph/01ExP


Bill Owens, former executive producer of “60 Minutes”

There comes a moment when journalistic integrity meets corporate reality. For Bill Owens, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, that moment arrived on Tuesday when he announced his resignation to a stunned newsroom. “It’s clear that I’ve become the problem. I am the corporation’s problem,” Owens told his staff, his voice breaking as he struggled to maintain his composure. After 37 years at CBS News and six years leading the iconic news program, Owens found himself backed into a corner where journalistic independence gave way to corporate and political pressure.

What happened here is that the Trump administration effectively forced out the leader of one of America’s most respected news programs. And nobody at Paramount—CBS News’s parent company—had the backbone to stand up for journalistic integrity. This isn’t just about one producer losing his job. This is a five-alarm fire for press freedom in America. The catalyst? A $10 billion lawsuit filed by Trump against CBS over what he called a “deceptively edited” October interview with then–Vice President Kamala Harris. Legal experts have called the suit frivolous, but that hardly matters when corporate interests are at stake.

The real story here is about Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Paramount, who’s desperately trying to secure Trump administration approval for her company’s multibillion-dollar sale to Skydance, a company run by the son of tech billionaire and Trump supporter Larry Ellison. Redstone has reportedly pushed for a settlement with Trump, despite the absurdity of his legal claims. Owens, to his immense credit, refused to cave. “Over the past months, 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,” Owens wrote in his resignation memo.

At Tuesday’s emotional meeting, which Oliver Darcy’s Status newsletter obtained audio of, Owens revealed the creeping corporate control that has infected CBS News. “In a million years, the corporation didn’t know what was coming up—they trusted 60 Minutes to report the stories and program the broadcast the way 60 Minutes saw fit,” he said, adding that any change to that arrangement created “a really slippery slope.” That slippery slope began months ago. In January, Redstone complained to CBS executives about a 60 Minutes segment on the Israel-Hamas war. A day later, the company appointed Susan Zirinsky to oversee the news division’s “journalistic standards”—a thinly veiled move to review politically sensitive 60 Minutes segments before they aired.

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[Carlitos Brigante]

1. K&R! nt

[jrthin]

2. I hope DUers stopped watching the show. But I suspect some here

will watch so they can post the scheduling and detailing of the show. Ugh. One of the ways "we the people" surrender our power.

[spanone]

3. This is how dictators take control. Fuck CBS.

[Kid Berwyn]

4. "Deceptively edited" is nonsense. Fuck trump. CBS can edit however they see fit.

As for why CBS edited: Shari Redstone wants the Skydance Benjamins.

Thanks, Putin.

[TommieMommy]

5. So sad what is happening 😡

[Fullduplexxx]

6. All evil needs is for good people to become cowards