A veteran CBS News producer who is leaving the network after 46 years has suggested that political bias is at play at the network in a farewell memo sent to colleagues on Friday afternoon.
“We’ve been reading a lot of goodbyes lately and here I am headed out the door. It’s too soon, even after 46 years,” Mary Walsh wrote in the memo, which was obtained by the Guardian. “But maybe it’s for the best. 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, the executive producer of the Evening News, pushed back on Walsh’s farewell comments in a follow-up note to her staff. “We wish Mary Walsh well and thank her for many years of service,” Harvey wrote. “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. 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 that elected to take a buyout. Approximately two weeks ago, another departing producer, Alicia Hastey, took a similar shot at the network’s direction under Weiss and Paramount Skydance’s chief executive, David Ellison.
In her memo, Walsh recounted her lengthy career at CBS News and some of the network legends she had worked with, including Walter Cronkite, Joan Shorenstein, Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer. “These days there’s a lot said about legacy, especially legacy media,” Walsh wrote. “The put-down is that you’re old and out of touch. To me, legacy is the way you will be remembered for generations to come.”
