Commentary

CBS News Shocker: Weiss Hires TV News Novice To Run '60 Minutes'

• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 7 hours ago

CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss is bringing in an outsider with no prior experience in TV news to run “60 Minutes.”

The announcement on Thursday was shocking news. “60 Minutes” is the third-highest rated show in all of network prime time, behind two CBS dramas, “Tracker” and “Marshall.”

The show is the highest-rated and most consistent performer of any show to ever come out of the CBS news division. 

The newbie is a guy named Nick Bilton, 47. He is described in a CBS press release as a print journalist, book author, podcaster and a maker of documentaries such as 2021’s “Fake Famous,” a documentary about internet fame, available on HBO Max.

Nowhere does his experience include TV network news reporting or producing. And yet, he has been hired to lead the most storied news program in the history of television.

“Nick is one of the most entrepreneurial journalists of our time and the perfect leader for one of the most entrepreneurial news brands of all time,” said a prepared statement from Weiss. 

“We have huge ambition for ‘60 Minutes’ to reach new heights through deep, revelatory journalism that breaks news, exposes wrongdoing, widens public understanding and forces accountability from every institution and every center of power,” the statement said.

The statement raises questions. What do “entrepreneurial” skills have to do with running “60 Minutes”? And in what way is “60 Minutes” itself “entrepreneurial”?

Moreover, Weiss’s vision for “60 Minutes,” as stated above, reads more like a description of how the show is now, and how it has been for 58 years.

It is a brand that is already well-known for its revelatory journalism that breaks news, exposes wrongdoing, widens public understanding and forces accountability from every institution and every center of power.

These are the very assets that Weiss’ statement implies that the show has not yet reached. 

“New heights”? It is hard to understand how a show that has already reached every height in its field can now reach new ones with an executive producer who has no experience in anything like it.

As the show’s new executive producer, Bilton replaces Tanya Simon, 55, a 30-year veteran of CBS News, who held the job for a little over a year.

Simon was just the fourth executive producer in the history of “60 Minutes” and the first woman in the role.

Among the close-knit staff of “60 Minutes,” Simon was one of the family. She is the daughter of the late “60 Minutes” correspondent Bob Simon, and the show’s correspondents and production staff all supported her for the position of executive producer.

The hiring of the news novice Bilton to take the helm of “60 Minutes” is part of an ongoing shakeup of the show being undertaken by Weiss, the internet firebrand who is also an outsider that had no experience in TV news at any level when she was brought in as editor-in-chief of CBS News last October.

During the Weiss reign, life at “60 Minutes” has been turbulent. Long-time correspondent Anderson Cooper left the show earlier this month, and correspondent Cecilia Vega, who came to the show in 2023, is also leaving.

In addition, CBS News declined to renew the contract of Sharyn Alfonsi, the “60 Minutes” correspondent who publicly criticized Weiss last December for yanking a story from “60 Minutes” at the last minute.

In the story, Alfonsi reported on a maximum-security prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration was sending Venezuelan migrants.

Weiss’s move was interpreted by many as an effort to placate Trump. In a statement this week, Alfonsi reportedly said the decision not to renew her contract is “a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting.”

For all I know, there may be many problems at CBS News to which Weiss and CBS News President Tom Cibrowski could devote their time.

By all appearances, “60 Minutes” is not one of them. This is a case of fixing something that isn’t broken.

But Weiss is the one who reportedly told CBS News staffers last November that she intends to blow things up.

But if she intends to blow up “60 Minutes,” then she may as well torch the entire news division too.