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CBS News is not hiring an outsider to helm “60 Minutes” as the program’s correspondents feared might happen.
Instead, the coveted executive producer job is going to Tanya Simon, a 25-year veteran of the newsmagazine, which has faced intense political pressure from President Trump for nearly a year.
Simon took charge on an interim basis last spring when the program’s longtime leader Bill Owens resigned under pressure last spring.
The promotion became official on Thursday morning when CBS News president Tom Cibrowski announced her new title at the network news division’s daily editorial meeting.
Simon “understands what makes ’60 Minutes’ tick,” Cibrowski said, praising her depth of experience with the program, which is America’s highest-rated newsmagazine.
Inside CBS, serious questions persist about potential corporate interference in news coverage. After Trump filed a legally dubious lawsuit against CBS News over a “60 Minutes” interview of Kamala Harris last fall, journalists felt that the network’s parent company Paramount did not fully back them up.
Throughout the winter and spring, as “60 Minutes” continued to produce sharply reported segments about Trump’s return to office and the impacts of his actions, news executives repeatedly clashed with Paramount bosses over the content of the program.
Getting and keeping “60 Minutes” on the air was a week-by-week challenge, people at the network told CNN at the time.
When Owens stepped down in April, he said it had become clear “that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it,” to “make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience.”
Simon, the daughter of the late “60” correspondent Bob Simon and the executive editor of the program for the past six years, stepped up as an interim executive producer.
“60 Minutes” is currently on its annual summer hiatus, which means CBS is airing encore episodes while teams are hard at work on new reports for the fall and beyond.
Earlier this month, Paramount struck a $16 million settlement deal with Trump to resolve his “60 Minutes” lawsuit, and was widely criticized for doing so.
Journalists at the newsmagazine have ongoing concerns about what pressures Simon might face as executive producer. Nevertheless, her promotion on Thursday came as a relief to staffers.
CBS noted that Simon “is the fourth executive producer in the broadcast’s 57-year history, and the first woman in the role.”
In a press release, Simon said she is deeply committed to the newsmagazine’s historic “level of excellence,” and “I look forward to delivering an exciting season of signature 60 stories that cover a wide range of subjects for a broad audience and engage viewers with their world.”
New episodes of “60 Minutes” are slated to begin airing on September 28.
By then, CBS might be closer to having a new owner. Paramount is in the process of merging with Skydance Media, but the deal requires Trump administration approval, and the review has been taking an unusually long time.
Earlier this week, in an apparent effort to win the administration’s blessing, Skydance told the FCC that if allowed to take over Paramount, it will hire an ombudsman at CBS and will take complaints about bias seriously.
The company also pledged not to implement any of the “DEI,” or diversity, equity and inclusion, policies that Trump has condemned.
FCC chair Brendan Carr, a Trump loyalist, shared Skydance’s commitments with associates on Tuesday — a possible signal that he was pleased. When asked by CNN if he is now any closer to approving the merger, he did not respond.
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