With layoffs widely expected and editorial tensions deepening, CBS News insiders fear that incoming editor-in-chief Bari Weiss will soon enact “massive changes” to the long-running news magazine 60 Minutes, according to network sources. The show, currently in its 58th season, remains the most-watched news programme of the broadcast season, drawing 10.1 million viewers for its 12 April episode. However, the 59th season, beginning after 17 May, will be the first fully under Weiss’s purview following Skydance Media’s acquisition of CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global, in August 2025.
One longtime network insider said to expect “massive changes” after the season ends, though the network is said to have no plans to alter the format or mission. Layoffs are widely anticipated. “People [at 60 Minutes] are afraid and they’re waiting for something monumental to happen here,” said another insider. A CBS News staffer expressed concern that Weiss would damage the show, “just like she has done with everything else at CBS News.” A third insider cautioned, however: “They don’t want to turn it upside down.”
In February, correspondent Anderson Cooper announced he was leaving the show. On 30 April, another prominent correspondent, Sharyn Alfonsi, strongly suggested she is likely to be “fired” before next season. Speaking at the National Press Club after receiving the Ridenhour prize, Alfonsi decried “the spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear” at the network, though she did not directly name Weiss, who had shelved Alfonsi’s December segment about the Trump administration deporting Venezuelans to a notorious prison in El Salvador. Weiss argued the piece needed to better convey the administration’s perspective.
Alfonsi’s public rebuke was extraordinary for a current employee, and it is widely presumed she will not return to the show, a decision that could cause significant backlash. Rome Hartman, a retired 60 Minutes producer, said: “If they don’t renew her, it is in direct retaliation for having the temerity to tell the truth.” A former 60 Minutes correspondent, speaking anonymously, said Alfonsi’s likely departure could create a chilling effect: “I just know that if I was there now, I would have a hard time knowing where the dial is, where the wind is blowing.” A source close to the network pushed back on the notion that certain stories are off limits. A CBS News spokesperson declined to comment on potential personnel moves.
CNN’s chief international anchor, Christiane Amanpour, last week expressed concern about Paramount Skydance’s chief executive David Ellison taking over the network, pointing to the “ideological realignment” of CBS News and “the destruction, potentially, of 60 Minutes”. “Nobody can match 60 Minutes for a brilliant television magazine show that’s been doing hard news and cultural news for decades and decades,” she said.
