Jill Schlesinger isn’t afraid to tell you how to really handle your dollars and cents. The former head of an investment advisory firm, Schlesinger has served as a business analyst for CBS News since 2013, helping to translate complex financial issues for everyday viewers and listeners. Now she’s going to take her blunt advice to … Read more
Trevor Phillips, a longtime British writer and anchor and former U.K. politician, has been named senior global affairs correspondent at CBS News, where Bari Weiss, the unit’s editor in chief, has articulated an interest in focusing on provocative voices and thinkers, potentially over traditional newsgathering. Phillips most recently hosted Sky News’ flagship program “Sunday Morning … Read more
Staffers have taken to calling it “Black Thursday.” On May 28, a half-dozen senior producers and correspondents at “60 Minutes,” the longest-running and highest-rated news program in the country, were unceremoniously shown the door. Correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, as well as executive producer Tanya Simon and executive editor Draggan Mihailovich, were among them. The firings were carried … Read more
Paramount CEO David Ellison recently vowed to “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl that the newsmagazine would have “editorial independence,” according to three people familiar with the matter, the latest sign the media conglomerate is trying to tamp down tensions around the venerable program in the wake of a recent ouster of its top producers and … Read more
Scott Pelley’s bombshell interview with The New York Times over the weekend after his firing from “60 Minutes” has drawn even more scrutiny to the management style of Bari Weiss, who in October was installed to oversee CBS News. The former print journalist, who launched the “Free Press” website, had no TV experience when Paramount … Read more
Seeking: Business executive to help manage one of nation’s best-known news brands. Must enjoy long hours, fluid and fluid work schedule — and editorial chief with predilection for generating controversy. Paramount Skydance has been on the hunt for a business executive who can work with Bari Weiss, the editor in chief of CBS News, who … Read more
Former “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley suggested in an interview with The New York Times that CBS News parent Paramount Skydance remove Bari Weiss as the leader of the news division, alleging in an emotional exchange that “television’s not her thing” and her inexperience with the medium and her belief that mainstream media is biased … Read more
Maybe they will stay? The new executive producer of “60 Minutes” vowed in a memo Thursday to uphold the CBS News property’s commitment to pursue stories “without fear or favor” and to not be “instructed by the ownership of the company” on sensitive reports, even as many at the Paramount Skydance news outlet continue to … Read more
The head of the Writers Guild of America East union blasted Paramount-owned CBS News for recent “cruel and needless layoffs,” its firing of “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley and the shutdown of CBS News Radio. In a message to members Thursday morning, WGA East president Tom Fontana decried the “assaults on CBS News, an institution … Read more