Ex-60 Minutes Staffers Excoriate Bari Weiss For Taking a ‘F*cking Machete’ to Show In Bruising New Report

(Sipa via AP Images)

Variety’s Marlow Stern published a scathing report on Thursday, chock-full of quotes from former 60 Minutes producers and executives blasting Bari Weiss and her headline-grabbing tenure running CBS News, which oversees the storied news magazine program.

Stern spoke to six former 60 Minutes staffers, including a 30-year veteran of the program and former correspondent, Steve Kroft. Kroft left the show in 2019 and pulled no punches in weighing in on what he sees as Weiss and new Paramount-Skydance owner David Ellison’s kowtowing to President Donald Trump.

Variety’s report comes just days after Axios revealed that Ellison will be tapping Weiss to “oversee all news editorial across both CBS News and CNN” if the Trump administration approves his deal to also buy Warner Bros. Discovery – potentially creating a mass media behemoth. Stern reported on his conversations that “All six former 60 Minutes staffers who spoke to me expressed worry that what’s happening at CBS News could be a harbinger of things to come at CNN.”

“This started as an argument between Trump and the show over the Kamala Harris piece, and the president of the United States made it very clear that he’d like to see this broadcast go away,” Kroft told Stern, adding, “He wanted to do away with it, and he’s intimated that from that point on. Some of the ruthlessness is coming directly from the president as a way to influence and make sure that Bari and David Ellison fall in line.”

“The Trump administration is concerned with the coverage of the Trump administration. And 60 Minutes has been tough on the first and second Trump administrations and are not afraid to call them out on things, and I don’t think this administration wants to tolerate it. That’s why you’ve seen this whole thing blow up,” Kroft added.

One ex-staffer acknowledged that 60 Minutes needed some updating, referring to new executive producer Nick Bilton’s memo to staff reminding them that it’s not “1968” anymore, which led to a highly publicized fight between Bilton and veteran correspondent Scott Pelley during a subsequent meeting. Pelley was later fired as Bilton accused him of “incivility” while attacking him during the meeting.

“We have to acknowledge that 60 Minutes needed a bit of a facelift, and there were potentially positive ways to improve the program, but it’s the way they have gone about it. You don’t give a facelift with a fucking machete,” said the unnamed former staffer.

Weiss also fired correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, executive producer Tanya Simon, and executive editor Draggan Mihailovich.

Stern also spoke to legendary 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman, who also traced the show’s trouble back to Trump’s lawsuit over the Harris interview.

“Trump filed a lawsuit that everybody laughed at — about editing — and you’d never think he could win that lawsuit in court, but he basically makes your lawyers impotent. He has a habit of filing lawsuits that he can’t win, and now that he’s the president of the United States, he has a lever and can win, so it’s a form of extortion,” Bergman said, adding:

[Trump] has always wanted to be a celebrity. He is a celebrity. And he’s living in a world that we all now know is that of a reality-TV star who’s constantly trying to rescript things that he’s said, or go backwards. The issue here is the open attempt by the president and the White House to destroy parts of the media that disagree with him. This has never happened before.

Stern ended the piece with some scathing criticism from Kroft of Weiss’s tenure in the media.

“I have a feeling that Bari will not be overseeing 60 Minutes for very much longer. I think once the deal gets done with Warner Bros., people will demand that she be let go or move into another position. Everything she’s touched has turned to shit. Everything she’s touched has gone colossally wrong. And I don’t think she’s showed any talent for this position. She’s only fulfilling other people’s agendas,” Kroft replied.

Weiss, of course, co-founded the online publication The Free Press and sold it to Ellison for some $150 million in cash.

Read the full Variety article here.

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