CBS News:
Facts or Ideology?
Before TV, was radio, and CBS built a reputation for high quality news due partly to Edward R. Murrow’s reports from London during the 1940 Blitz. Murrow set a high standard of thorough research and accuracy that lives today through the Murrow Awards, prestigious recognitions for radio news excellence.
With the advent of TV news in the 1950s, CBS continued its high standard with respected anchors including Kansas City native Walter Cronkite from 1962-1981. Hired by Murrow, Cronkite expanded evening news from 15 to 30 minutes. Willing to spend more on news than its competitors, CBS overtook NBC as the top rated newscast. A poll called Cronkite “the most trusted man in America.”
CBS launched 60 Minutes in 1968 as a Sunday evening “news magazine,” and by 1976, it was the top-rated Sunday prime-time program in the country and highly profitable as well. Fifty years later, it still is. It’s also the longest-running TV program in U.S. history.
Now, 60 Minutes finds itself at the center of controversy. Trump has disliked the program for years, calling it “a dishonest political operative disguised as news.” When the program ran an interview with Kamala Harris before the 2024 election, he sued CBS News and its owner, Paramount, claiming it was edited unfairly to him. Paramount was eager to have Trump’s FCC approve a potentially profitable merger that would give control of CBS to billionaire and Trump ally David Ellison. Paramount settled the suit for $16 million, caving in to Trump as several universities had done to save their federal research grants. Both the 60 Minutesexecutive producer and the CBS news chief editor soon resigned and were replaced by people with limited experience in TV news but who clearly planned changes likely to please the new owner and Trump.
The lesson had not yet been learned that the way to deal with a bully is to stand up to him. Sure enough, when talk-show host Stephen Colbert called the settlement “a big fat bribe,” CBS canceled his program, which was the most popular of the late night talk-shows. Five months later, the new chief news editor pulled a 60 Minutes segment, partly about Trump’s policies affecting Venezuelan migrants, on the day it was scheduled to air.
The experienced reporter of the segment objected, calling the pulling a political move. Two other long-time reporters also objected to the new management’s disrespect for the freedom of the press to go where the facts lead regardless of political pressures. All three were fired. Former U.S. secretary of labor and political economist Robert Reich wrote that “the most successful television news broadcast in U.S. history is being dismantled because Trump doesn’t want America to know the truth.” And which trusted news source may fall next? David Ellison is in the process of acquiring CNN.
Distinguished New Yorker editor David Remnick wrote about editorial independence in the June 8 issue: “If the contemporary media scene has proved anything of late, it is that a reliably supportive proprietor is as rare as a cool breeze in August. The political and financial costs of backing journalism that challenges the honesty or the competence of the powerful can be . . . distinctly inconvenient. Some owners show their mettle for a spell, then find adequate reason to knuckle under; others have no intention of even pretending to do what is hard or what is right.”
Writing to a friend in 1816, Thomas Jefferson concluded that “Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.” Reading is no longer the only way to be truthfully informed. All media must be free to inform us of the facts without fear or favor.
