Former “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens joined the growing revolt against CBS News leadership Monday night, blasting new Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss as an ideologue and praising Scott Pelley for confronting the network’s direction.
Owens, accepting the Gabe Pressman Truth to Power Award at the New York Press Club’s annual dinner, said Pelley “can smell a fraud from a mile away” and voiced strong support for his former colleague’s public criticism of CBS leadership. Owens specifically criticized Weiss, describing her as “an opinion writer best known for being an ideologue.”
According to The Wrap, he also condemned the network’s “Black Thursday” firings of longtime correspondents including Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi, saying: “They were fired by people who don’t even know what we do and don’t actually care.”
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| Bill Owens |
Owens, who stepped down as executive producer of “60 Minutes” in April 2025 citing concerns over editorial independence, emphasized that both “60 Minutes” and CBS News are “institutions, not places where partisans and ideologues should be employed.”
He acknowledged the program is not perfect and has made mistakes but defended its journalistic standards: “There’s a rigor in how ’60 Minutes’ approaches every story. That isn’t what this crew is looking to do.”
Owens’ remarks came just hours after Scott Pelley publicly confronted new “60 Minutes” executive producer Nick Bilton amid ongoing tensions at the network.