Scott Pelley: '60 Minutes' has faced 'no corporate interference' by new Paramount owners
CBS' Scott Pelley discusses the transition of "60 Minutes" after Paramount Global merged with Skydance Media.
"60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley said the long-running CBS program has yet to face any interference from the new leadership that have taken over Paramount.
Speaking on Friday as an honoree at the USC Annenberg’s Walter Cronkite Awards, Pelley referred to 2025 as being a "fraught time" for "60 Minutes" and said that a "great deal of pressure" was placed on the program since it was at the center of President Donald Trump's lawsuit against Paramount. Paramount ultimately settled the lawsuit ahead of the company's $8 billion merger with Skydance Media, which needed the Trump administration's approval.
Pelley lamented the resignations of "60 Minutes" executive producer Bill Owens, who left in protest, as well as CBS News President Wendy McMahon, calling both of them "the most outstanding leaders in journalism I have known throughout my career."
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Scott Pelley (R), lamented the exits of "60 Minutes" executive producer Bill Owens and CBS News President Wendy McMahon (L) while being honored at the USC Annenberg’s Walter Cronkite Awards. (Getty Images)
"However, I will say that in that season, last season, all of our stories got on the air. We got them all on the air," Pelley said. "We got them on the air with an absolute minimum of interference, nothing anyone in this room would be alarmed by. So, our company is the new Paramount, and we were all very concerned at ‘60 Minutes’ about what that meant."
"It’s early yet, but what I can tell you is, we are doing the same kinds of stories with the same kind of rigor, and have experienced no corporate interference of any kind. So that has been a tremendous way to start this season," he continued.
CBS News did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. Paramount declined comment.
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"60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley says his program has faced "no corporate interference" by the new leadership at CBS News' parent company Paramount. (David M. Russell/CBS via Getty Images)
The "60 Minutes" newsroom faced internal strife as Paramount engaged in months-long mediation with Trump's attorneys over CBS News' handling of the program's interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump sued the network alleging election interference over two different sets of comments she made that aired separately on CBS News answering the same question.
The raw transcript of the interview released by the FCC showed that both comments did come from the same answer but the first half, which was panned as "word salad" by critics, aired in the preview clip while the latter half aired during the primetime special the next day.
New Paramount owner David Ellison named Bari Weiss the editor-in-chief of CBS News. (Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images; James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images; Noam Galai/Getty Images for The Free Press)
Upon his resignation, Owens told his colleagues that corporate overreach impacted his ability to maintain an independent newsroom. It was reported at the time that Shari Redstone, Paramount's controlling shareholder before the merger, wanted to "keep tabs" on upcoming ‘60 Minutes’ segments involving Trump and his administration.
The long-running magazine program now has new leadership with Paramount now being owned by David Ellison, who appointed Bari Weiss to be the editor-in-chief of CBS News.
Network staffers previously expressed concern that Ellison and Weiss would interfere in their reporting as the new bosses.
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Fox News' Alba Cuebas-Fantauzzi contributed to this report.
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