this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2025

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524

The top producer at '60 Minutes' has quit. He says he can no longer run the show as he always has (apnews.com)

submitted 2 days ago by HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works to c/news@lemmy.world

28 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Bill Owens, executive producer of television’s most popular and influential newsmagazine since 2019, said in a note to staff that it has “become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for ’60 Minutes,’ right for the audience.”

“The show is too important to the country,” he wrote. “It has to continue, just not with me as the executive producer.”

At the same time, CBS parent Paramount Global, run by Shari Redstone, is seeking approval for a merger with Skydance Media, founded by Larry Ellison. They are reportedly in mediation to settle the lawsuit with Trump, a prospect that has been bitterly opposed by Owens and others at “60 Minutes.”

top 28 comments

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[–] adarza@lemmy.ca 135 points 2 days ago (5 children)

can't wait to see which former faux news producer gets the gig.

[–] SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 day ago

You used the word right (an ordinarily would be a wonderful pun), but just in case, I want to point out that "faux" is provided "foe" and not "fox".

https://howjsay.com/how-to-pronounce-faux

[–] ccunning@lemmy.world 69 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Sounds like maybe we should be more interested to see what Bill Owens does next.

[–] chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Well, HBO has Oliver, Apple had Stewart, so I'd wager with a Disney/ABC streaming news show, unless they have one.

[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Apple lost Stewart because they didn’t allow him to even talk about China.

[–] chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Yeah, I knew as soon as he signed up it wouldn't last. Apple is not known as a bastion of free will. Everything they do is a walled garden.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 22 points 2 days ago

Pete Hegseth is going to be needing a job soon.

[–] charade_you_are@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

can't wait for all the sweet puff pieces with conservatives.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Is this a crack pipe joke

[–] No_Bark@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 day ago

[–] death@infosec.pub 6 points 2 days ago

It appears one of them will be looking for a new job soon, so this is good timing.

[–] Remember_the_tooth@lemmy.world 37 points 2 days ago

Challenges to the citizenship birthright, bypassing due process and courts, deporting legal residents, putting them in a famously brutal concentration camp, and now taking more news media companies captive under the accusation that they're the "lying press." Yep, totally normal.

[–] rothaine@lemm.ee 32 points 2 days ago (1 children)

approval for a merger with Skydance Media

STOP IT

Actually enforce anti-trust instead

[–] pc486@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 day ago

That department has been RIFed.

[–] death@infosec.pub 44 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I wonder if this lawsuit could also affect The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

[–] charade_you_are@sh.itjust.works 31 points 2 days ago (3 children)

on the bright side, maybe Colbert will have to go back to doing The Colbert Report

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 29 points 2 days ago (2 children)

That show wouldn't work anymore, Colbert got out of that at the exact right time. No matter how ridiculous of a parody of the right wing he could come up with, the real life idiots would be saying and doing things even more ridiculous the next day.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 9 points 1 day ago

basically Onion is no longer relevant as well.

[–] charade_you_are@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

lol, that's true. good point

[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 13 points 2 days ago

That would be a net benefit for society.

[–] ohholyjesus@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Comedy Cental is owned by Paramount, which also owns CBS. It's more likely the Daily Show would be a casualty.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 19 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

You've got fascists in charge. It's going to be a hard fight to keep any kind of free press or broadcasting going.

[+] mlg@lemmy.world -11 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I mean tbf people have been calling 60 minutes a legacy production of the bygone era of quality journalism for years now.

[–] mako@lemmy.today 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You're half-right.

It's real, researched, well-produced journalism which is definitely a relic of the past at this point.

I don't think that's what you were saying, though. Since your opinion hinges on what "people have been calling" it, I think you probably don't watch it and believe that since it's an old show and format, it must be inferior to.. sound bites, inflammatory remarks, click/rage-bait, "X slammed Y," etc.

And that's sad.

[–] mlg@lemmy.world -2 points 1 day ago

Actually I did use to watch it quite often.

My point was not that it dropped in quality, it's just that it became slow to keep up with ongoing events with details and information readily available via basic OSINT on primary sources or even regular quality news outlets.

Ex: https://youtu.be/dRRJmOTCqqQ

Pretty much everything presented in this report was already well known and available for months, making the the rest essentially a PR moneyshot for the US Navy.

I still watch it occasionally for its direct interviews with select people, but it's still a legacy production that struggles to keep up with info you can get even from AP or Reuters.

Mind you it's still miles better than flaming trash like Washington Post or NYT, but I could easily see CBS axeing it years ago.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It's been in decay for a while, thanks to corporate and ultra-conservative ideological interests leaning on it. A lot more of the content has drifted towards anti-immigrant fearmongering, pro-war jingoism, and paleoconservative fixations on Big Government (in the form of social programs rather than police power) and public debt. The parade of hagiographies for the ultra-wealthy and the endless pumping of tech sector vaporware haven't been great, either.

But enshittification has been strangling every major television news publication for a long while now. Owens isn't exactly a radical. He made his bones giving Bush Jr an hour long platform in between 9/11 retrospectives on the eve of the 2002 election and then spent a big chunk of his career producing glossy sports media spreads for the benefit of some of the most shamelessly corrupt billionaires in the country. Since taking the "60 Minutes" producer's desk, he's bent over backwards to accommodate the studio's biggest advertisers.

If the job is too miserable for him now, I have to assume it is because he is just answering angry phone call after angry phone call from a corporate advertising base that's plunged right off the reactionary cliff.

[–] brianary@startrek.website 3 points 1 day ago

I mean, they are also responsible for making news a for-profit enterprise, which has arguably ultimately killed it.