60 Minutes, the long-running CBS News program, ended Sunday night’s broadcast with an extraordinary rebuke of its own parent company, Paramount Global, for caving to pressure from the Trump administration. The criticism from 60 Minutes comes after the program’s longtime executive producer resigned over a lack of freedom in covering President Donald Trump.
’60 Minutes’ reporter calls out corporate bosses in on-air rebuke
In the final segment of 60 Minutes’ broadcast Sunday, correspondent Scott Pelley used the program’s “Last Minute” segment to honor the program’s recently resigned executive producer, Bill Owens, who left the program earlier this week after he “lost the independence that honest journalism required” amid coverage of polarizing topics like the war in Gaza and the Trump administration. “Our parent company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger,” Pelley explained, and “the Trump administration must approve it. Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways.” Pelley noted that “no one here is happy” about Owens resigning but expressed his admiration for the integrity of his former boss. “He did it for us — and you,” Pelley told the audience.
Increased scrutiny amid a pending corporate deal
Pelley’s comments come after Owens, who has worked for CBS for 37 years, resigned Tuesday over what he saw as stifling new oversight from his corporate bosses concerning the stories the program was covering. The corporate interference concerning 60 Minutes comes as Shari Redstone, the controlling owner of CBS parent company Paramount Global, attempts to close a deal to sell the company to the son of Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder of Oracle. Federal regulators must approve the deal. Additionally, Ellison is a friend of Trump, and Redstone has disapproved of 60 Minutes for coverage critical of Israel in the ongoing war in Gaza. “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,” Owens said in a message to members of his staff, according to NPR. “To make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience.”
Trump’s hostility toward the media
Trump and his allies have long been hostile toward mainstream media, labeling stories critical of the president as “fake news.” Fear of reprisals from Trump have seemed to sway major news organizations and their owners in recent years. During the 2024 election cycle, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times broke with past tradition when they declined to publish their editors’ endorsements; it was suspected at the time that the billionaire owners of the two newspapers intervened to kill endorsements of Vice President Kamala Harris, perhaps due to fear of hurting their relationships with Trump should he win, which he did in November. Last year, Trump sued ABC News over comments made by host George Stephanopoulos concerning Trump’s adjudicated history of sexual abuse; ABC settled the lawsuit for $15 million. And Trump has sued CBS over an interview it conducted with Harris during the presidential campaign, alleging that the version aired was edited to paint Harris in a more favorable light.
Now, the Trump administration’s bullying tactics appear to have pushed out a leading journalist of one of the country’s premiere news programs. Given this administration’s track record, this will likely not be the last time that Trump’s agenda comes into conflict with efforts by the media to cover this administration.
