Attempts to clean up the mess at 60 Minutes caused by CBS News’ MAGA-curious editor-in-chief Bari Weiss were met with humiliating pushback.
Nick Bilton, the flagship magazine show’s new executive producer, took the extraordinary step of trying to convince Draggan Mihailovich, who was purged by Weiss on what CBS staff have dubbed “Black Thursday,” to return to the show, reported Status.
Bilton asked the few remaining 60 Minutes correspondents—Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and Jon Wertheim—to contact Mihailovich and ask him whether he would be willing to return, but he declined.
“Bilton’s openness to potentially rehiring the show’s top editor amounts to yet another acknowledgment that Weiss badly misjudged when she carried out her ill-conceived firings at 60 Minutes,” Status’ Oliver Darcy wrote. “Indeed, it is difficult to interpret the move as anything but an admission that perhaps Mihailovich should not have been pushed out to begin with.”
The desperate moves by Bilton come after he was condemned by current and former 60 Minutes staff over the firing of longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley.
During an explosive team meeting earlier this month, Pelley suggested that the former tech journalist and screenwriter Bilton had “slender qualifications” for his new role, and that Weiss was “murdering” 60 Minutes.
As part of his cleanup operation, Bilton also hired the highly respected producer Maria Gavrilovic, who worked closely with Pelley, as his No. 2.
While some 60 Minutes staffers have appreciated the efforts, others remain skeptical of Bilton and have yet to be convinced by him, reported Status.
In addition to the highly respected Mihailovich, Weiss also fired several other figures from the network in a single day last month, including 60 Minutes correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi, as well as executive producer Tanya Simon.
There were fears that veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Stahl would also opt to leave the struggling show when the 84-year-old’s contract expired. However, Stahl, Whitaker, and Wertheim announced that they will be staying on, although they admitted it was a “hard decision.”
In a memo to staff, the trio said they “don’t want to see 60 Minutes die” while eulogizing those who were culled from the show during Weiss’ disastrous tenure.
“We feared that our returning might be construed as an endorsement of the existing power structure,” they added. “That is simply, categorically not the case.”
The correspondents also took a thinly veiled swipe at Weiss, who has frequently meddled in the editorial independence of 60 Minutes as part of her efforts to completely overhaul the show.
“If we can continue doing the work that made this show what it is—committing acts of independent, fearless journalism and storytelling—we’re here for it,” they wrote. “If not, we leave.”
