A longtime 60 Minutes producer who has been with CBS News for more than four decades has resigned amid upheaval at the storied newsmagazine.
Michael Gavshon will stay on until the end of June, he wrote in a memo to colleagues, the New York Post reported.
“Thirty-four of my forty-one years at CBS News have been at ’60 Minutes,’” Gavshon wrote. “The old chestnut, I have stood on the shoulders of giants, couldn’t be more true.”
CBS News did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
Gavshon’s resignation comes less than a year after Bari Weiss assumed control of the network—a move that has led to controversy at CBS and 60 Minutes specifically.
Late last year, Gavshon was reportedly left “exasperated” by Weiss’s involvement in a story about the Trump administration’s admission of South African refugees.
Anderson Cooper, the correspondent for that story, quit in February, a few days before it aired. Weiss’s reported attempts to ensure that he stayed ultimately failed.
Since then, several key 60 Minutes players have been fired. Late last month, in what staffers are now calling “Black Thursday,” Weiss let go executive producer Tanya Simon and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. Also shown the door were senior executive producer Draggan Mihailovich—who reportedly declined a return offer—veteran producer Guy Campanile, and Matthew Polevoy, head of digital operations.
Weiss replaced Simon with Nick Bilton, a former tech columnist who, like herself, has never worked in broadcast news before joining CBS. Bilton’s appointment spurred 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley to confront Bilton in front of staffers and accuse Weiss of “murdering” the program.
Bilton fired Pelley the next day.
Only three 60 Minutes correspondents from last season are currently set to stay on through the next one: Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and Jon Wertheim. In their joint statement, they said their decision should not be “construed as an endorsement of the existing power structure.”
Weiss, who was appointed by Paramount CEO David Ellison to try to make the network more appealing to conservative audiences, has been publicly criticized by former CBS staffers.
“Everything she’s touched has turned to s--t,” former 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft told Variety. “Everything she’s touched has gone colossally wrong. And I don’t think she’s shown any talent for this position. She’s only fulfilling other people’s agendas.”
Kroft added, “I have a feeling that Bari will not be overseeing 60 Minutes for very much longer."
