Former ‘60 Minutes’ chief criticizes questions and ratings
Semafor editor-in-chief Ben Smith noted that the new iteration of had aired segments on alleged corruption in the Trump administration, and to many viewers the show was nearly indistinguishable from the old version.
Key points
- When asked what he thinks now of the show he used to oversee, Owens succinctly replied: “Not a lot.” “They own the company, they can do whatever they want,” he said of CBS parent company Skydance’s new leadership.
- Bill Owens, who resigned last April in protest of what he saw as editorial overreach that was tilting the show in favor of President Donald Trump’s administration, argued an interview at Semafor’s New Media & Marketing Playbook event in New York that while may look and feel the same to many viewers, the quality of the show has declined.
- The longtime executive producer of said he’s unimpressed with his successors and disappointed that the show had missed an opportunity to press Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on the Iran war.
But other things are just questions that need to be asked,” he said, adding: “They didn’t ask how the war was going.
“But the ratings are telling.” “There’s no doubt that linear television is in decline.
Additional details
- Owens singled out the news organization’s recent interview with Hegseth, arguing that what the network’s journalists didn’t ask was notable.
- “When I left, I really hoped that I was going to cause enough of a commotion that they would kind of back off.
- And the people, my senior team, the correspondents, they’ve tried their best,” he said.
- But the numbers the other day were less than 6 million people.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
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