‘DISTURBING’

Fired ’60 Minutes’ Star Slams MAGA-Induced ‘Ratings Slump’

“It hurts to watch,” the former correspondent said.

Former 60 Minutes correspondent Cecilia Vega said the show’s trajectory since MAGA-curious Bari Weiss’ takeover “hurts” her personally

“It pains me,” Vega, 49, said at a Thursday evening talk in Washington, D.C. “It hurts to watch, from afar. It hurts to talk to my colleagues who are still there. It hurts to see the ratings slump that is happening right now.”

Weiss, 42, fired Vega in May as part of her mass CBS News overhaul. Vega’s contract wasn’t due to expire until March 2027, prompting confusion about why she was terminated.

In July, Vega went public with claims that CBS News executives pressured her to insert what she said was political bias into three segments that aired this year. Sharyn Alfonsi and Scott Pelley, the two other ousted correspondents, have made similar accusations about CBS News’ editorial interference.

“I still don’t know why I was fired,” she said. “I was not given a reason. I was fired without cause. I just find it exceptionally disturbing.”

Since Weiss’ and Paramount leadership’s Trumpy takeover, ratings for 60 Minutes have taken hit after hit after hit, with this season pulling one of the smallest audiences in years. Vega said that the show’s MAGA turn was so obvious that viewers “had to know what was happening in there, that the news that they are seeing, in my experience, had become compromised.”

“I held the line, and Scott held the line, and Sharyn held the line, and I think people are still holding the line over there,” she continued. “But what they are having to go through, or what we had to go through, should never happen in a newsroom.”

Vega also discussed how Trumpy nepo baby David Ellison, 43, subsumed CBS under his mammoth media company Skydance, including bringing in Weiss as CBS News chief. The changes have been confusing and “hard to watch,” Vega said.

“I don’t know what the endgame is,” she continued. “I think it’s a real mystery.”

Earlier this month, Skydance closed an $110 billion deal to acquire and merge Paramount and Warner Bros., which means Ellison now owns CNN in addition to CBS News. Vega is concerned about the future of journalism, especially if Ellison opts to combine the two platforms.

“I’m fearful for job security,” she said. “I’m fearful for editorial independence. I hope folks can hold the line, but I don’t have a crystal ball, and I’m not going to predict what happens. It makes me nervous for sure.”

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Dana Herrnstadt Editorial Intern, Obsessed

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