Departing 60 Minutes correspondent Anderson Cooper has shared a parting wish for the CBS news program amid the network’s MAGA-coded takeover.
The 58-year-old correspondent made his final appearance on 60 Minutes Sunday, after announcing his departure in February amid reports that he had grown “uncomfortable” with the “rightward direction” of CBS under new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss.
While talking about the program’s future during Sunday’s segment, Cooper appeared to offer a thinly veiled message to Weiss, who was installed by Trump-friendly Paramount-Skydance CEO David Ellison last October.
“I hope 60 Minutes remains 60 Minutes,” Cooper said. “There’s very few things that have been around for as long as 60 Minutes has and maintained the quality that it has.”
He added, “I think the independence of 60 Minutes has been critical.”
Cooper argued that “things can always evolve and change,” before saying, “But I hope the core of what 60 Minutes is always remains.”
Cooper also noted that viewers’ “trust” in the program is “critical to the success of 60 Minutes.”
“When you see a 60 Minutes story, and you’re like, ‘That was a really good story.’ It was a good story because it requires time and it requires patience, it requires money, and it requires an appreciation of the history and the sacrifices and the hard work of the people here,” he said. “And I hope that’s known and honored and valued and continues.”
The Daily Beast has contacted CBS for comment.
60 Minutes has been rocked by a string of controversies since Weiss took over.
In January, Status reported that Weiss, 42, had stalled a 60 Minutes segment that Cooper was presenting about the White House’s claims about a “white genocide” in South Africa. The outlet said veteran producer Michael Gavshon grew “exasperated” by what it characterized as “abnormal” edits to the segment.
The interference is thought to be partly responsible for Cooper’s departure, who has been a 60 Minutes correspondent for more than 20 years.
A CBS source, speaking to the New York Post, said at the time that Cooper “doesn’t like that she has inserted herself.” The source added, “He doesn’t want the hassle. This is the first time any of them had a boss they have to answer to.”
Weiss, a former anti-woke opinion columnist with no professional TV news experience, also sparked a staff mutiny in December by shelving a 60 Minutes segment about the Trump administration’s sending migrants to an El Salvador mega prison without due process.
Cooper has not mentioned any internal discord at CBS, saying he was stepping back to spend more time with his two young children.
“I’ve got a four-year-old and a just now six-year-old and I want to spend as much time with them as I can while they still want to spend time with me,” he said on Sunday.
Cooper earned multiple awards for his work on 60 Minutes, including five Emmys. The most recent came in 2020, when he won the “Outstanding Arts, Culture or Entertainment Report” award for a piece that profiled the artist Mark Bradford.
