The former executive producer of 60 Minutes, Bill Owens, said he faced intense internal pressure from his corporate bosses to avoid certain stories that had the potential to generate backlash for parent company Paramount, in his first public remarks since his sudden resignation in late April.
In January, 60 Minutes ran a segment featuring former state department employees who had quit over how Joe Biden’s administration handled the war in Gaza. The segment drew backlash from pro-Israel organizations and unnerved Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, a strong supporter of Israel.
“She didn’t like the story,” Owens told an audience at Colby College in Maine on Friday evening, where he accepted an award given for courage in journalism.
Afterwards, Owens says, he was basically told: “Well, you’re not going to do another Gaza story, are you?” While Redstone didn’t call him directly, “that message was relayed to me by people with authority over me”, he said.
The show continued covering the story. “When I said we were going to do another Gaza piece, that was like hitting a hornet’s nest,” he told the crowd. “This idea that we were doing stories that [lacked] balance, on the face of it – it’s just wrong.”
Owens also said he was encouraged to tamp down coverage of Donald Trump. “The Trump stuff they were very concerned about,” he said. “I remember at one point I got a phone call from someone that was trying to be an intermediary saying: ‘Do you need to mention Trump’s name that often?”
Owens said he was unmoved by the entreaties. When he faced pressure to apologize for the way 60 Minutes edited an interview with then-vice president Kamala Harris after conservative backlash and a $10bn lawsuit from Trump, he made it clear he wouldn’t.
“I said, I’m not apologizing for anything. We haven’t done anything wrong,” he recalled. “We haven’t done anything wrong. 60 Minutes isn’t perfect. 60 Minutes has made mistakes in the past, and we have always owned those mistakes.”
Ultimately, Owens said, he decided that he couldn’t stay in his job anymore, and called it quits in April.
“The only thing I could do was professionally blow myself up to create a blast radius around 60 Minutes to get people’s attention that this was happening,” he said.
Owens emphasized that he believed these were attempts at corporate censorship, particularly as Paramount sought the approval of Trump’s hand-picked Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, to approve the company’s merger with Skydance Media. He got the impression, he said, that he would be blamed if his actions – and unwillingness to apologize – jeopardized the merger and damaged the network.
Internally, Owens discouraged 60 Minutes staffers from resigning out of protest over his departure, which came months after the selection of Susan Zirinsky to oversee standards at the network.
“There was a whole bunch of people who were like: ‘We’re going with you,’ and I’m like: ‘Nope, you sit down,’” he said.
Like CBS News executive Wendy McMahon, who resigned in protest in May, Owens opposed the corporation’s intention to settle the lawsuit. The company did so anyway in July, though it did not apologize to Trump. While Redstone had formally recused herself from the settlement negotiations, she had earlier indicated to Paramount’s board that she supported one.
During Friday’s event, Owens was interviewed by Amna Nawaz, who co-anchors the PBS NewsHour. She asked him whether he thought he had accomplished his goal of calling attention to his concerns at CBS and stemming the tide.
“I wonder if any part of you wishes that you’d stayed,” she said.
Owens had worked at CBS News since 1988, becoming executive producer of the Sunday newsmagazine show in 2019. While he said he doesn’t know Bari Weiss, who was recently named editor in chief of CBS News, he noted that she doesn’t have a reporting background – and encouraged her to protect 60 Minutes.
“She was an opinion writer. Obviously a very smart woman, but she hasn’t gone and covered news stories like she’s going to be asking everybody else to,” Owens said. “I sure hope that she recognizes that the best group of television journalists are working at the most successful television show in American history … I just hope that she recognizes that that’s something that should be protected.”
While he didn’t have any details to share, Owens told the crowd that he planned to re-enter the news business and had had conversations with potential journalism funders.
“I will definitely get back in the game,” he said, hinting also that he might “write something”.
The award given to Owens honors anti-slavery publisher Elijah Lovejoy, who was killed by a mob in 1837. Owens, who said he didn’t think he was worthy of the award, told the crowd that his greatest fears for the country were “apathy” and “cowardice”.
“I do think more people need to stand up,” he said. “You either do the right thing and accept the consequences, or you don’t, and then you live with the consequences.”
A spokesperson for Paramount declined comment on Owens’ remarks.
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