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  "path": "/post/211397/new-60-minutes-boss-salary-top-staff-quitting",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-04T21:37:34.000Z",
  "site": "https://newrepublic.com",
  "tags": [
    "Breaking News",
    "Politics",
    "Media",
    "CBS",
    "CBS News",
    "60 Minutes",
    "Bari Weiss",
    "Scott Pelley",
    "Leslie Stahl",
    "Money",
    "Page Six",
    "Black Thursday",
    "notoriously brutal CECOT mega-prison",
    "canned",
    "contentious all-staff meeting",
    "Status"
  ],
  "textContent": "CBS News is spending a lot more cash to fund Bari Weiss’s _60 Minutes_ takeover.\n\nWeiss’s new pick to run the venerated newsmagazine, Nick Bilton, is making far more than his predecessor. The British-born contrarian was installed as _60 Minutes_ ’ new executive producer last week, and is reportedly salaried at $2.5 million—a million more than veteran broadcast journalist Tanya Simon, who ran the show from April 2025 to just last week, according to Page Six.\n\nWeiss announced Bilton’s hire the same day that she fired a large swath of the show’s crew in an event that has since been internally referred to as “Black Thursday.” The axed staff included Simon, correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi (who criticized Weiss’s decision to delay her report on a notoriously brutal CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador), correspondent Cecilia Vega, and executive editor Draggan Mihailovich.\n\nScott Pelley, who had been one of the show’s rotating faces for 22 years, was canned Wednesday after he openly questioned Bilton’s appointment during a contentious all-staff meeting earlier this week. At the same meeting, Bilton suggested that more layoffs could be on the horizon.\n\nThe show’s remaining correspondents have since begun to question their own futures at the decorated program: Correspondents Bill Whitaker, Lesley Stahl, and Jon Wertheim reportedly held an hourlong meeting Wednesday on the matter, according to Status. Stahl’s contract has already expired, and it is not clear if it will be renewed. Three sources that spoke to the outlet shared that Whitaker is considering his options and might leave on his own accord. Anderson Cooper already left by his own volition last month.\n\nBilton is by no means the show’s typical hire, and many critics of the hiring decision have questioned what qualifies him to run _60 Minutes_ at all. Bilton has previously worked as a tech columnist, writing for _Vanity Fair_ and _The New York Times_. He seemingly left the news industry during the latter half of the last decade in order to pursue screenwriting in Hollywood, and has since worked on scripts and produced projects for major studios including Lionsgate, Netflix, and Disney.\n\nIt is not publicly known how much the program’s highly respected, longtime showrunner Bill Owens made before he was forced out in April 2025 for refusing to bend to Donald Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit. Trump sued _60 Minutes_ over its sit-down interview with Kamala Harris prior to Election Day 2024, claiming that the program had essentially “defrauded” the American public due to a minor editing decision. Legal experts condemned the suit at the time as meritless, yet CBS’s parent company Paramount nonetheless agreed to pay Trump $16 million in order to settle the case out of court.",
  "title": "New 60 Minutes Boss Rakes in Millions as Top Staff Eye the Exits"
}