Only Donald Trump Could Ruin "60 Minutes" [UPDATE: Scott Pelley fired]
Another lesson in "Elections Have Consequences"
Longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley is pissed.
In a 10 am staff meeting Monday morning, he tore into Bari Weiss, the CBS News Editor in Chief recently installed by Trump surrogate and pal David Ellison, saying she “murdered” the long-time news fave of many Americans, “60 Minutes.”1
He then went after new “60 Minutes” executive producer Nick Bilton, who was hired last week by Weiss, despite, like Weiss, having no substantial experience in broadcast journalism.
According to the New York Times:
In an extraordinary exchange, Mr. Pelley, his newscaster’s baritone sometimes shaking in anger, told Nick Bilton, the new executive producer, that he had “slender” qualifications for his new job and questioned the network’s commitment to the future of the program, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The New York Times.
Pelley laid into the two after Bilton resisted claims he’d turn “60 Minutes” into a glorified TikTok, but couching those assurances with his belief that “60 Minutes” was part of an outdated institution: broadcast news in general. When Bilton continued by saying Bari Weiss was committed to the integrity of “60 Minutes,” Pelley went ballistic. That’s when he called her a news murderer.
Weiss herself didn’t arrive at CBS with the strongest credentials. She spent some time with the Wall Street Journal as an op-ed and book review editor, then was hired by the New York Times during Trump 1.0 in a sorry effort to answer criticism that its editorial leanings were too leftist.
After spending a few years there, she ran a Substack publication called the Free Press before being handed the CBS job. The Free Press billed itself as a partisan-free zone, but its editorial content was decidedly right-wing to reflect Weiss’ personal sentiments.
It would be like if I opened Ruminato to other writers and claimed it was bipartisan. Would you believe that? Of course not. My readers are the smartest on Substack, but even a casual look at my writing dispels any notion that I have any interest in “fair and balanced.” No such thing has ever existed in American media. Why start now?
At the Free Press, Weiss publicized the case of Palestinian professor Refaat Alareer after he gained a following as a critic of Netanyahu’s response to the October 7 attacks.2 He was mostly an unknown dissenter in those days, but Weiss went after him hard on her Substack, and he became a target of the busy right-wing hate faction.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed him shortly after that, along with six members of his family, in an airstrike designed to shut him up. We’ll never know how much Weiss’ big mouth helped lead to that attack, but I’ve never seen her utter any words of regret.
Let the desecration begin
One could say that the desecration of “60 Minutes” began when Weiss killed a 13-minute report by Sharyn Alfonsi about CECOT prison in El Salvador. That’s the place, you’ll recall, where Kristi Noem posed in front of a big iron cage filled with newly deported Venezuelans (some were even heavily tatted!!!).
In an act of brazen cruelty that Noem gushed about like Oprah giving away cars, the regime sent Venezuelan men to a prison in a country these migrants knew nothing about.
Weiss stomped all over Alfonsi’s ten years of experience as a “60 Minutes” reporter by pulling the story a day before it was scheduled to air.3
This kind of direct interference was a first for “60 Minutes.”
Alfonsi put up a public fuss, writing staff members:
“In my view, pulling it now — after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”
Alfonsi was cut loose last week as part of Weiss’ larger overhaul of “60 Minutes,” which didn’t need an overhaul.
That may have happened because Aflonsi was vocal about CBS’s apparent transition into a Trump propaganda machine:4
In the coming days, network leadership may attempt to hide behind corporate euphemisms like ‘modernization’ and ‘restructuring’ to explain away my departure. Don’t be misled. This was not a routine corporate transition; it was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting, and it sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom. Fearless, independent reporting has always been the defining standard at ‘60 Minutes.’ Today, CBS management is abandoning that mission, choosing access journalism over accountability and protecting power rather than scrutinizing it.
The wall between editorial independence and corporate interest at CBS is being methodically torn down. Journalists willing to challenge authority are being pushed aside in favor of those who will not. If this continues, the result will be a broadcast that looks like ‘60 Minutes’ but lacks the courage and character to produce journalism that matters.
Weiss then fired Tanya Simon, a “60 Minutes” stalwart who spent the last three decades helping the program become the most popular news program in television history.
Tanya Simon’s exit follows her predecessor by a year, Bill Owens, who said during the purchase of CBS by David Ellison’s company Skydance:5
“Over the past months, it has also 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 was another cherished “60 Minutes” veteran. His departure was a big blow to the morale of the “60 Minutes” production crew, but they soldiered on when Tanya Smith and her three decades at the show took over.
Weiss also cut loose correspondent Cecilia Vega. Vega wrote:6
I very much fear what comes next and for the future of the legendary broadcast…
…I know from many conversations with colleagues that many producing teams and correspondents working on the show today have had to fight to maintain editorial independence with regularity. I am far from the only ‘60 Minutes’ correspondent who has asked herself, ‘What is my personal red line? How much can I push back before I pay the price?
This week, she found out.
Anderson Cooper also left, leaving only vague hints that it might be because Weiss is in charge. If there’s anybody in the world less interested in burning bridges than Anderson Cooper, that person has not been revealed, so it’s not surprising he slipped away without fanfare.
Weiss has made all these changes while claiming the show needed to be revamped. But “60 Minutes” remains perhaps the most respected news program in the business and a ratings behemoth, especially by today’s standards. People may not watch much unrecorded TV these days, but when they do, they’re often watching “60 Minutes.”
Now that it’s in the hands of a MAGA tycoon and her Free Press stooge,“60 Minutes” is probably dead and gone.
Will Weiss’ new “60 Minutes,” for example, provide us with a deep dive into the origin story of the latest wild collection of crazed Trump social media posts?7
This was part of one of the madman’s recent insane Truth Social binges, which included one set of rants consisting of 52 posts in six hours while normal Americans were sleeping. No wonder he falls asleep at ceremonies honoring the dead.
None of this would be happening if nearly 77 million people hadn’t thought a second round of a rageaholic with a deteriorating mind (“they’re eating your cats and dogs”) was preferable to electing a qualified professional woman to lead the country. This wackadoodle decision has had many more consequences than a sudden spike of inflation or a large-scale, sustained attack on immigrants, women, and people of color.
It also gave us Bari Weiss, because the election results also gave us David Ellison, Oracle founder Larry Ellison’s son, who used insider tactics in the Trump regime to acquire CBS shortly after the election.
Time of death: July 7, 2024
CBS News died on July 7, 2024. That was when a media organization nobody aside from cinephiles knew about, Skydance Media, announced that it had agreed to acquire Paramount Global to form a $28 billion megamedia firm.
Skydance, not even twenty years old at the time of the merger, was basically the progeny of Larry Ellison, by way of another unfortunate oligarchy birthing incident that begat his son David. David grew into an adult body, then formed Skydance because he liked movies.
Skydance quickly formed a production and distribution partnership with Paramount Pictures. Little did unsuspecting fans of Star Trek realize that every time they dropped a few dollars for the newest Star Trek reboots, they were helping to finance the end of CBS News.
It didn’t take long for Ellison and Skydance to gain street cred in Hollywood, which was trying to move on from the dominance of Harvey Weinstein after his Hollywood walk of shame.8 Ellison’s production company cranked out hugely profitable hits such as the Mission Impossible franchise and the sequel to Top Gun.
Ellison specialized in creative financing deals, such as one with Apple TV’s streaming service that guaranteed Skydance $25 million for each film.9
Ellison’s company bartered and clawed its way to an eight-billion-dollar purchase of Paramount, which, by that time, also owned CBS.
The FCC, now managed by sycophants at the Trump regime, approved Skydance’s buyout in July, shortly after Paramount bent the knee to the grifter in chief to the tune of $16 million. That’s the amount Trump sued CBS’s “60 Minutes” for airing an interview with Kamala Harris, who had the temerity to point out his many flaws.
Paramount paid up.
When Paramount coincidentally and abruptly pulled the plug on Stephen Colbert’s late-night TV show, a few folks wondered if there might be a connection with the concurrent FCC approval process.
Enter Project 2025
The FCC is helmed by a fella named Brendan Carr, the mad clown’s chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Carr was originally nominated as an FCC commissioner by Trump in 2017.
Carr wrote Project 2025’s chapter on media policy as envisioned by MagaLoons. He is also a member of the Federalist Society,10 which is part of a shadow government that has installed several United States Supreme Court justices and often actively solicits favorable outcomes through bribery. I wrote about this way back in August 2024 (with more hat tips to ProPublica than I have hats to give):
It wasn’t until Carr signed off on the Skydance acquisition of Paramount that the regime gave its final okay. Carr and the regime demanded two things in return for the merger’s approval:
A full reversal on DEI
The installation of a mediator/monitor within CBS who will watch for socialist teachings (my words).
Cancel Colbert (?) (Yes, that’s three things in total, but I didn’t count this last one formally because it’s a valid assumption, not a reportable fact).
The merger put a Trump supporter in control of another major American news organization. Right-wing supporters now control or own:
Paramount/CBS
Fox Corporation (Murdoch Family): Fox News, Fox Business, and various local Fox affiliates.
News Corp (Murdoch Family): The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, HarperCollins (a major book publisher), and other news properties.
Sinclair Broadcast Group: Owns 185 TV stations11 in 86 markets, and was a major player in blocking Jimmy Kimmel during another First Amendment kerfuffle instigated by King TrumpleThinSkin.
Salem Media Group: Conservative radio stations and digital properties like HotAir.com, RedState, and PJ Media.
Newsmax Media: The bonkers Newsmax TV, known for some of the craziest MAGA and right-wing commentary around.
Right-wing podcasters like Joe Rogan and Candace Owens have also swarmed Spotify. Candace Owens is so popular among airheads that Polymarket even poses the question: “Candace Owens for president?”
There’s also a massive spiderweb of right-wing YouTubers, independent podcasters, and even nutso Substackers adding to the fascist-leaning media mix.
The media landscape is now dominated by the right wing, yet the right wing is never satisfied, so they continue to complain and write about a phantom left-wing media.
This media landscape, along with the madness of the mad King of Bling, has enormous influence on young minds, especially young men and teenage boys, who flock to new right-wing podcasters and conservative sports blogs like Barstool Sports, which hosts podcasts from the types of jockstrap munchers who still think the idea of making slingshots out of bras is funny.
It’s not a pretty picture, and I have no idea what the fix would be if a Democrat took over tonight, much less more than two years from now. That’s two years more to shape minds and fill them with hate, grief, and rage, most of it because their own policies are creating levels of strife throughout the nation that will leave the next administration with the responsibility of cleaning up the mess before even thinking about how to solve gut-punch problems like climate change.
Even worse, the next government will inherit the extra burden of establishing a crime commission tasked with calling to account the massive grift infecting the nation on behalf of the Grifter in Chief. The call for unity will be heard long and loud during those early years, especially from, and mark my words here, the Republican Never Trumpers who are currently allies.
The well-known Never Trumper Substack Bulwark will create headlines, for example, reading like this: “Why Democrats Should Seek Unity Instead of Revenge.”
The next government cannot afford to heed those calls. But even more importantly, the next government will need to thread a dangerous needle: How to fix the media landscape without trashing the First Amendment.
Thanks for reading!
Don’t forget the footnotes if you are looking for sources.
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Footnotes
Grynbaum, Michael M, and Benjamin Mullin. “Scott Pelley Accuses CBS News Boss of ‘Murdering’ ‘60 Minutes.’” The New York Times, June 1, 2026.
Rumnato Gift Link 🎁 https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/business/media/cbs-60-minutes-scott-pelley-nick-bilton.html 🎁
This Guardian story is a nice writeup about how normal Alareer was. A teacher, a poet, and, thanks to Netanyahu’s genocidal war machine, a dead one:
Guardian staff reporter. “‘How Many Dead Palestinians Are Enough?’ The Unbearable Prescience of the Late Poet Refaat Alareer.” the Guardian. The Guardian, December 10, 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/dec/10/refaat-alareer-book-gaza-palestine-poet.
The story eventually ran with minor changes. But Alfonsi is still gone.
Jones, Tom. “‘60 Minutes’ Drama Simmers as Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi Says She’s out - Poynter.” Poynter, May 28, 2026. https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2026/cbs-news-bari-weiss/.
Poynter, ibid
Jones, Tom. “Major Shakeup at ‘60 Minutes’ Raises Questions about Its Future - Poynter.” Poynter, May 29, 2026. https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2026/60-minutes-tanya-simon-fired/.
Original screen capture by Aaron Rupar.
Halpert, Madeline. “Harvey Weinstein Found Guilty of Sexual Assault after New York Retrial.” Bbc.com. BBC News, June 11, 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn7z3gezdjro.
Donnelly, Matt. “Apple, Skydance Megadeal Is One of the Richest Pacts in Hollywood.” Variety, February 23, 2022. https://variety.com/2022/film/news/apple-skydance-mega-deal-david-ellison-1235188364/.
“Brendan Thomas Carr | the Federalist Society.” 2019. Archive.org. July 10, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20191106205126/https://fedsoc.org/contributors/brendan-carr.
Sinclair, Inc. “TV Stations at Sinclair Broadcast Group,” July 11, 2025. https://sbgi.net/tv-stations/.
Great column....so well researched. I weep over the loss of 60 minutes. And Colbert...but I'm confident he will be seen again, somewhere, somehow.
"My readers are the smartest on Substack" Why, yes. Yes they are. 😂
"How to fix the media landscape without trashing the First Amendment." A monumental question. Money will always be the deciding factor with these corporate owned news outlets...and maybe new ones will emerge. We can only hope.