Staff at CBS’s flagship investigative show 60 Minutes are deeply unhappy about network boss Bari Weiss’s latest hires for the program.
Chief among the new recruits is right-wing New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat, who has no reporting background and little on-camera experience. A memo from newly appointed executive producer Nick Bilton hailed Douthat as “one of the preeminent public intellectuals in America today, a thinker of uncommon rigor and a journalist of deep empathy.”
Status reported Wednesday that colleagues inside the show have positively bristled at that billing. A veteran TV executive texted the outlet that “the idea that Ross can be a ‘60’ correspondent is a joke.”
Religion runs through much of Douthat’s writing. He became a Catholic at 17 while a pupil at Hamden Hall Country Day School in Hamden, Connecticut, where upper-school fees now reach $53,100 a year. Katie Kingsbury, who edits the Times opinion section, told staff he had written about “the Catholic Church he loves and challenges in equal measure.”
Speaking at a Society of Catholic Scientists event in 2025, Douthat said his seventh book, “Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious,” does not hinge on “one slam dunk argument that absolutely proves once and forever the existence of God.” He instead laid out three strands of evidence that he said point to a cosmos with intent behind it, one in which mind comes before matter.
Bilton’s memo listed other additions that appear to have gone down about as well as Douthat. Writer Sebastian Junger and ex-VICE correspondent Gianna Toboni arrive as contributors, along with former Sky News host Sir Trevor Phillips as senior global affairs correspondent despite past accusations of Islamophobia. CBS’ own Norah O’Donnell has now been confirmed as a full correspondent.
Industry figures who spoke to Status questioned whether any of the new signings belong on the broadcast. One measured them against Mike Wallace, Diane Sawyer, Ed Bradley and Scott Pelley. “They never would have been considered for the actual ‘60 Minutes’,” the veteran said.
A second news veteran told the outlet the appointees lack the on-air records and public followings to shift the show’s fortunes. “These are the most coveted on-air jobs in TV news,” that person said.
Unease predated Douthat’s hire. Staff already doubted whether even experienced correspondents could quickly master the show’s signature long-form segments, according to Status.
The network is still trying to fill senior producer roles under Bilton. He has used those interviews to air his own grievances about life at CBS, insiders told the New York Post. “He’s having therapy sessions in these interviews,” one source said.
Candidates understood the role on offer was Bilton’s number two, according to the Post, though the listed duties closely resembled his own job. “What the f--- is Nick going to do?” one source asked. A network source told the paper Bilton is now looking for three or four deputies, each with a defined brief.
Bilton has told people the process feels to him like “assembling ‘The Avengers of news,’” the Post reported. The line did not land with everyone. “We’re journalists. Not Marvel movie characters,” one source said.
He has also waved away criticism of Weiss as “Bari-derangement syndrome,” a phrase that is current among her allies, according to the Post. Someone who knows Bilton told the paper the Avengers line was just a comparison, and that Bilton, raised in England, “never gets sports analogies correct.”
Bilton has apparently sat down with 70 people over the past two months to staff the program. He has not hired a single senior producer, though Maria Gavrilovic, a long-serving producer on the broadcast, is currently acting as his deputy and is expected to take the job permanently.
Douthat and the other hires are the latest shake-up under Weiss, 42, whom Paramount Skydance chief David Ellison, a Trump ally, installed as CBS News editor-in-chief in October 2025. Weiss arrived with no broadcast grounding of her own. Status reported she had once bragged about not owning a television.
Weiss has instituted at CBS what critics have slammed as a rightward swing and an aversion to anything critical of the Trump administration. Ratings have slid since. CBS Evening News, anchored by Tony Dokoupil since January, is on course for a July average of 3.8 million—the fourth month in a row it has failed to clear 4 million. Only one July this century has been worse for the newscast.
CBS Mornings,fronted by Gayle King, averaged 1.6 million, the weakest month in the show’s history. Another executive told Status the overhaul had driven ratings to record lows, adding, “There is little hope these 60 Minutes changes will do anything but the same.”
The Daily Beast has contacted CBS News for comment on this story.
