‘Another Black Eye for Bari’: Insiders Dish on What Drove Anderson Cooper to Quit 60 Minutes

(L: Photo by Alberto E. Tamargo/Sipa USA/Sipa via AP Images; R: Screenshot via CNN)

In his statement announcing he was leaving 60 Minutes, Anderson Cooper cited his desire to spend more time with his young children, but that was “not the only factor” in his decision, reported Oliver Darcy in his Status newsletter Monday evening.

Cooper, who also anchors his AC360 show weeknights on CNN and is a correspondent for the cable news network, has been a correspondent with 60 Minutes for nearly two decades, winning four Emmys and numerous other accolades for his reporting.

“Being a correspondent at ’60 Minutes’ has been one of the highlights of my career. I got to tell amazing stories, and work with some of the best producers, editors and camera crews in the business,” said Cooper in a statement. “For nearly twenty years, I’ve been able to balance my jobs at CNN and CBS, but I have little kids now and I want to spend as much time with them as possible, while they want to spend time with me.”

His departure from 60 Minutes — first reported by Lachlan Cartwright at Breaker — comes after a tumultuous year on the venerated television program, after several longtime staffers left, network brass pushed through a controversial settlement with President Donald Trump in order to help pave the way for CBS’s parent company Paramount’s merger with Skydance Media to get the administration’s approval, and Weiss’ decision to delay airing a segment on the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, abbreviated CECOT, a notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration sent some undocumented immigrants in contravention of court orders.

It’s that internal strife at CBS News that drove Cooper out the door, reported Darcy — specifically the “rightward direction the network has taken” with David Ellison owning CBS News post-merger and his hand-selected editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss.

Cooper was reportedly on Weiss’s short list for the next anchor to helm CBS Evening News. However, she “not only failed to persuade Cooper to grow his footprint at the network, but ultimately helped chase him away from it entirely,” wrote Darcy.

According to Darcy’s report, a CBS News insider told him that Cooper “wasn’t comfortable with the direction the show was taking under Bari, and is in a position where he doesn’t have to put up with it.” Another “person familiar with the matter” confirmed that “discomfort with Weiss” was connected to why Cooper was leaving the show.

The way “Weiss has inserted herself into the editorial process” at 60 Minutes “has rattled many on the show,” Darcy wrote, describing the “intense level of editorial scrutiny” applied to one of Cooper’s pieces on the Trump administration’s far more lenient approach to refugees from South Africa, dragging out the timeline for reporting that has been going on “since last year” and leaving producer Michael Gavshon “exasperated” with the meddling.

“It is unclear when—or if—the piece will ultimately air,” wrote Darcy.

“This is another black eye for Bari,” an industry observer told Darcy. “CBS is losing a talented storyteller who she wanted to keep. Remember, she tried to poach him full time last year.”

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!