A veteran CBS News producer who is leaving the network after 46 years has suggested that political bias is at play, according to a farewell memo obtained by the Guardian. Mary Walsh wrote to colleagues on Friday: “We’ve been told to aim our reporting at a particular part of the political spectrum. Honestly, I don’t know how to do that.”
The memo comes a day after CBS News owner Paramount Skydance emerged as the likely victor in a takeover fight for Warner Bros Discovery, owner of CNN. CBS is now headed by Bari Weiss, a conservative commentator turned media entrepreneur, whose appointment was seen as a fillip to the Trump administration.
Kim Harvey, executive producer of the Evening News, pushed back on Walsh’s comments in a follow-up note to staff. “Mary wrote in her farewell note, ‘We’ve been told to aim our reporting at a particular part of the political spectrum.’ That is simply not true,” Harvey wrote. “Here at the Evening News, we value our editorial independence, and CBS News leadership has never asked us to aim our reporting in any political direction.”
Walsh is one of nearly a dozen employees on the network’s evening news program who elected to take a buyout. Another departing producer, Alicia Hastey, recently criticised the network’s direction under Weiss and Paramount Skydance’s chief executive, David Ellison, saying stories may be evaluated “not just on their journalistic merit but on whether they conform to a shifting set of ideological expectations”.
During a town-hall event with Weiss last month, an Evening News staffer said: “Certain decisions and editorial choices have scared us. There has been a chilling effect within our newsroom.” Walsh received a glowing tribute from CBS News president Tom Cibrowski on a staff-wide call on Friday morning.
