CBS News shakes up 60 Minutes as ousted correspondents ‘fear what comes next’

Amid rising questions about 60 Minutes’ editorial integrity, CBS News on Thursday announced major changes for the Sunday newsmagazine show, appointing the former New York Times tech journalist Nick Bilton as executive producer for the 59th season, which begins in the fall.

Tanya Simon, the daughter of legendary 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon, has been ousted as the show’s top producer, a role she took on after the resignation of longtime executive producer Bill Owens in the spring of 2025.

The network has also parted ways with Cecilia Vega, a 60 Minutes correspondent who joined the program in 2023, and Draggan Mihailovich, the executive editor who had spent decades on the show.

Earlier on Thursday morning, a representative for the veteran correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi confirmed that she had been terminated by the network. Alfonsi had said a day earlier that her contract had not been renewed, but that she remained an at-will employee.

In a blistering statement, Alfonsi called out the network’s decision-making and claimed that she was penalized for pushing back on Weiss’s criticisms of her December 2025 segment about a notorious prison in El Salvador.

In a statement on Thursday provided to the Guardian, Vega confirmed that she was fired by CBS despite having almost a full year left on her contract. Like Alfonsi, she suggested political bias at play at the network.

“I have the utmost respect and admiration for my colleagues at 60 Minutes and the stories that air every Sunday. But I very much fear what comes next for and the future of the legendary broadcast,” she said.

“In recent months, my producing teams and I have experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories. Reporting teams have held back on submitting story pitches about important news topics out of fear of the internal repercussions.

“Let’s call this what it is: censorship, both imposed and self-driven. It is dangerous for the show and dangerous for democracy.”

Vega said she had discussed her concerns with other colleagues on the show. “I know from many conversations with colleagues that many producing teams and correspondents working on the show today have had to fight to maintain editorial independence with regularity,” she said. “I am far from the only 60 Minutes correspondent who has asked herself, ‘What is my personal red line? How much can I push back before I pay the price?’”

All told, the moves on Thursday represent one of the most significant shake-ups of the venerable program, which has for 52 straight seasons been the most-watched news program on television, averaging 9.1 million total viewers in its most recent season.

But Bilton’s appointment is the most significant move – and one that will probably generate heat from the staff of 60 Minutes, who have been loyal to Simon and viewed her promotion to executive producer last year as an indication that the new leadership of CBS News parent company Paramount wanted to preserve the show’s winning formula.

“Nick Bilton is one of the most entrepreneurial and ambitious journalists working today,” Bari Weiss, the CBS News editor-in-chief, wrote in a post on X. “I am thrilled that he is the next executive producer of 60 Minutes.”

In a memo to staffers, Bilton called the job the “honor of [his] career”. He acknowledged the show’s vaunted history but nodded to changes in how people consume the news.

“The fact that this show has remained a fix point in a culture is part of why this show still matters as much as it does. I don’t want to lose that,” he wrote. “But the world we are reporting on, and the world we are reporting to, where people consume their news, has moved. And if we don’t move with it, in the ways that matter, we won’t be here for the next sixty years. I want to do everything humanly possible to ensure that we are.”

While Bilton has a lengthy career as a tech journalist and documentary film-maker, he has not produced a broadcast television program, and certainly not one with the history and complexities of 60 Minutes. Weiss also began her role as editor-in-chief of the network in October 2025 with a background in opinion commentary but no experience in television news.

“Evolving or dying isn’t a threat. It’s simple math,” Bilton wrote in the memo. “My responsibility is not just technological transformation. It is also our trust with the public.”

Laying out his approach as executive producer, Bilton wrote: “I’m here to lead this show, not preserve it under glass. That means honoring what works and being honest about what doesn’t. I have a notebook full of ideas. Some are about the show itself. Some are about the next generation of correspondents. Some are about the strange fact that we produce one extraordinary hour for one night a week in a world that consumes content around the clock. I’m excited to share them, and I’m confident you’ll be excited by them, too.”

Bilton said he hoped to meet with the staff of the show and would come back with a battle plan in about a month.

“This is the best job in journalism,” he wrote. “I can’t wait to introduce myself and meet each of you.”

Still, in the memo and in an interview with the New York Times, Bilton shared little about what changes he actually plans to make – though he and his new bosses have talked about trying to expand the brand beyond the Sunday show.

CBS News insiders had long anticipated that Weiss and her leadership team planned to make changes to the show, with some worrying that it could tarnish the program’s reputation and impressive ratings. By ousting multiple correspondents and top producers, Weiss has undoubtedly put her stamp on the broadcast – and will take the reputational hit if the show’s ratings suffer come this fall.

In addition to Alfonsi and Vega, the cast for the show’s 59th season will not include Anderson Cooper, a CNN anchor, who announced in February that he will not be returning to the show, saying he wanted to devote more time to his family.

Alfonsi’s exit was expected after her clash with Weiss and public comments last month decrying what she said was “the spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear” at CBS News. She expanded on those remarks in her lengthy statement on Wednesday.

“In the coming days, network leadership may attempt to hide behind corporate euphemisms like ‘modernization’ and ‘restructuring’ to explain away my departure,” Alfonsi said. “Don’t be misled. This was not a routine corporate transition; it was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting, and it sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom.”

In her own statement on Thursday, Vega offered encouragement to her colleagues who are remaining with 60 Minutes. (The Times first reported Vega’s comments.)

“Today I lost an amazing job,” she said. “But I still have my integrity. To my former colleagues, continue to hold the line.”