Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison appears to be desperately trying to contain the crisis he set off at 60 Minutes after the firing of the show’s leadership and three star correspondents.
The Trump-friendly billionaire, who installed anti-woke opinion journalist Bari Weiss as CBS News editor-in-chief, had largely kept his distance from the chaos that has engulfed the legendary news program since late May.
But as the situation threatens to trigger a wider staff exodus, Ellison has entered the fray.
Veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl, one of just three correspondents remaining at the program, told The New York Times on Tuesday that Ellison, 43, had promised on a call to respect the editorial independence of 60 Minutes.
By reaching out to Stahl, who had considered quitting after the firing spree but ultimately stayed, Ellison appears to be trying to quiet fears that he and Weiss are on a mission to drag the network in a Trump-friendly direction.
Those concerns had been building for months within CBS and among the public, but exploded on May 28 when CBS bosses fired correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, executive producer Tanya Simon, and three more 60 Minutes staff members without explanation.
Alfonsi, who worked for CBS for nearly 20 years, had clashed with Weiss after the editor-in-chief temporarily shelved an El Salvador jail report that painted the Trump administration in a negative light. Meanwhile, some CBS staffers believe Simon was fired in part because she allowed Anderson Cooper to deliver a thinly veiled critique of CBS leadership during his final segment, according to Puck.
Though Ellison, the son of Oracle billionaire and GOP megadonor Larry Ellison, may promise editorial independence for 60 Minutes, he is also actively cultivating ties to the Trump administration as his company seeks federal approval for its $111 billion bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent company. In April, Ellison hosted Trump for a dinner “honoring the Trump White House.”
Ellison has also been spotted next to the president at UFC matches and attended this year’s State of the Union address with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.
Enraged by the firings, longtime correspondent Scott Pelley confronted Simon’s replacement, Nick Bilton, in an explosive all-hands meeting at the New York office last Monday, pressing him on the firings and telling the new boss that he would “never be welcome” at 60 Minutes. Bilton, a tech journalist with no TV experience, fired Pelley the day after their confrontation.
In the wake of the bloodbath, Stahl and the two other remaining correspondents, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim, huddled together to deliberate over whether to stay.
On Friday, they announced in a memo to staff that they would remain at 60 Minutes, writing, “ We don’t want to see 60 Minutes die.”
“We have been grieving because this whole mess has wounded and damaged the broadcast. We want to stay and fight, try to repair and preserve our reputation,” they wrote, while pointing to an email Bilton had sent to staff in which he tried to allay concerns about the program’s journalistic independence, much like Ellison appears to be doing now.
Stahl told the 60 Minutes staff about Ellison’s promise while holding a champagne toast to improve newsroom morale on Monday, the Times reports. Bilton was present, too.
“My toast was, ‘to us,’ meaning the survivors,” Stahl told the Times in a text message. “Maybe ‘us’ with a twinge of survivor’s guilt.”
Wertheim also spoke during the toast, telling Bilton he had been dealt “a hell of a hand,” and noting that there were “bridges to build and fences to mend and assorted other structural metaphors,” the Times reported, citing two people familiar with his remarks.
“But there’s a path here,” he said.
Pelley, however, told the Times on Sunday that he got the impression that Weiss was “putting a thumb on the scale on behalf of the administration,” and was “constantly looking out for the views of the president.”
