The most-watched news program on CBS is expected to undergo “massive changes” once its season ends on Sunday, a new report alleges.
An insider tells The Guardian that the network’s MAGA-curious news boss, Bari Weiss, is plotting sweeping changes at 60 Minutes, which is already set to lose two of its top correspondents in Sharyn Alfonsi and Anderson Cooper.
“People are afraid, and they’re waiting for something monumental to happen here,” the longtime network insider told the paper.
That insider added that viewers can expect massive changes to 60 Minutes for the program’s 59th season, with whispers of a newsroom shake-up that could include layoffs and opening the show to other journalists from across CBS, like Evening News host Tony Dokoupil.
Weiss, a conservative blogger with no prior TV experience before her CBS gig, was named editor-in-chief of CBS News in October after the MAGA billionaire David Ellison acquired her Free Press website.
Since taking over, Weiss has axed dozens of journalists and rankled her staff with editorial decisions widely viewed as benefiting the Trump administration. That includes her pressing pause on an already-marketed 60 Minutes segment about the administration sending migrants to an El Salvador mega prison without due process.
Staffers told The Guardian they are worried their MAGA-curious boss will permanently damage the prestigious brand of 60 Minutes, which has aired since 1968, “just like she has done with everything else at CBS News.”
The program has already seen its biggest star, Cooper, 58, pass on a contract renewal.
Officially, Cooper said he is stepping back to spend more time with his family, but Status reported in February that one of Cooper’s segments for the show—exploring President Donald Trump’s decision to accept refugees from South Africa—was “subjected to an intense level of editorial scrutiny” that was described as being “abnormal.”
Alfonsi, 53, is also reportedly not having her contract renewed after clashing with Weiss over editorial decisions.
The dispute dates back to Alfonsi’s segment on a notorious El Salvador mega-prison detaining deportees from the United States, which Weiss reportedly pulled on the grounds that it did not adequately include the administration’s point of view.
Alfonsi defended her segment and has since described Weiss’s decision as “corporate meddling and editorial fear.”
“If they don’t renew her, it is in direct retaliation for having the temerity to tell the truth,” Rome Hartman, a longtime 60 Minutes producer who retired last year, told The Guardian.
Another potential departure could come from veteran Lesley Stahl, 84, who was reportedly unhappy with Weiss’s decision to “upstage” a planned interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by ultimately assigning it to CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett instead.
Weiss, who is an outspoken supporter of Israel, drew criticism when it was revealed that she allowed Netanyahu to choose between Stahl and Garrett for the interview.
To address the reported potential departures, Weiss is reportedly planning to bring on Dokoupil and others from the newsroom to 60 Minutes episodes, allowing anchors beyond its usual correspondents to appear more regularly.
“I just know that if I were there now, I would have a hard time knowing where the dial is, where the wind is blowing, what stories can you even suggest at the risk of alienating the powers that be,” a former 60 Minutes correspondent told The Guardian.
The Daily Beast has reached out to CBS for comment.
