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See the full story · 1 sourcesSince Bari Weiss became editor-in-chief, a number of 60 Minutes veterans have departed, including Scott Pelley and Anderson Cooper
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60 Minutes is adding a roster of new talent, replacing several veteran correspondents who left the flagship CBS News program after Bari Weiss became the network’s editor-in-chief.
“An exceptional lineup of journalists will be joining 60 Minutes , carrying on its tradition of fearless, independent and impartial reporting,” Nick Bilton, the show’s new executive producer, wrote in a Tuesday memo shared on X . “I can't wait for them to get started.”
Five journalists will join the weekly broadcast for the 59th season, including a longtime conservative opinion writer at The New York Times .
Weiss has been dogged by controversy since her appointment last October, which came after Paramount, CBS News ’ parent company, was acquired by billionaire David Ellison . Critics have accused her of steering coverage to favor the Trump administration and Israel, accusations she has firmly denied.
“What’s being called ‘editorial interference’ is in reality the job description of an editor in chief,” Weiss told The Wall Street Journal in June.
Under Weiss’ leadership, a series of journalists have left 60 Minutes , including Scott Pelley , who was fired after reportedly accusing Weiss of “murdering” the flagship news program, and Sharon Alfonsi , who was dismissed after a public clash with Weiss over the decision to pull a segment on a brutal Latin American prison . In May, Anderson Cooper also bid farewell to the program. In his final address, he emphasized the importance of editorial “independence.”
Of the five new hires, one appears to have garnered the most attention: Ross Douthat, a conservative columnist at The New York Times , who will now be a correspondent.
“Ross is one of the preeminent public intellectuals in America today, a thinker of uncommon rigor and a journalist of deep empathy,” Bilton wrote. “He makes controversial topics approachable and renders characters and points of view with richness and compassion.”
Douthat joined the Times in 2009 and last year launched the podcast Interesting Times , on which he has interviewed Vice President JD Vance and Justice Amy Coney Barrett , among other officials. He has also written several books, including Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious .
Weiss has a history with Douthat. The two overlapped at the Times , where Weiss was an opinion editor from 2017 to 2020, the year she left the paper, accusing it of catering to Twitter commentators. After founding the anti-woke media company The Free Press , she interviewed Douthat on her podcast last year.
When Douthat’s departure from the Times was announced, Opinion Editor Katie Kingsbury praised him in a staff memo.
“He made the case for a religiously serious, intellectually restless conservatism that never needed an enemy to define itself against,” Kingsbury wrote, according to The Daily Beast . “He wrote about decadence and renewal, about the Catholic Church he loves and challenges in equal measure, about the populist right he understood before most of us had a name for it.”
Not everyone welcomed the decision to add a Catholic columnist to a news program, though.
“Making Ross Douthat a 60 Minutes correspondent is the least self-aware thing an opinion journalist hired to run a TV news network could do,” Dan Pfeiffer, a host of Pod Save America and former senior advisor in the Obama administration, wrote on X.
Norah O’Donnell , senior correspondent for CBS News, will also join 60 Minutes as a correspondent after previously contributing to the program.
Bilton characterized her as a “powerhouse,” adding that she has “contributed exceptional pieces to the show for more than a dozen years, including interviews with Pope Francis , President Trump, President Biden and Mohammed bin Salman.”
Also joining the program as contributors are Sebastian Junger, a journalist and author of The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea ; Gianna Toboni, a former senior correspondent at VICE News; and Trevor Phillips, a former Sky News host.
“Ross, Sebastian, Gianna and Trevor are entrepreneurial journalists who understand how to reach modern audiences,” Bilton wrote. “Between them they have written books and magazine articles, produced documentaries, TV shows and podcasts, hosted live events and built brands on independent platforms.”
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