NEW YORK (AP) — CBS News has made significant leadership changes at its flagship program ’60 Minutes,’ installing technology journalist Nick Bilton as the new executive producer while announcing the departure of several key personnel.
Tanya Simon, who had led the program for approximately one year following three decades with the renowned Sunday broadcast, is stepping down from her role.
CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss and CBS News President Tom Cibrowski announced the changes in a Thursday staff memo, stating their objective was “building a show that thrives in the 21st century.”
“That requires a new approach,” the executives wrote, describing their vision as “expanding ’60 Minutes’ beyond a one-hour television broadcast, deepening its role across CBS News, and holding everything we produce to the ambition, fairness, and fearlessness that have defined ’60 Minutes’ at its best.”
The leadership praised Bilton, describing him as someone who “embodies the energy and ambition that animated the founders of the show. We cannot imagine a better fit.” Bilton previously worked as a technology columnist for the New York Times and has experience in documentary filmmaking.
The changes also affected on-air talent, with correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega departing the program, according to an anonymous source with knowledge of the situation. Alfonsi had previously experienced editorial tensions when her investigative piece about torture in Salvadoran prisons was temporarily shelved by Weiss before airing a month later.
These major organizational shifts were anticipated following Weiss’s arrival in October under Paramount’s new leadership structure. The founder of the Free Press website has quickly established herself as a prominent and sometimes controversial figure in the journalism industry.
In his own detailed staff communication, Bilton acknowledged his lack of traditional television broadcasting background while emphasizing the program’s significance. He called ’60 Minutes’ “without exaggeration, the most important television journalism brand this country has ever produced.”
“The fact that this show has remained a fixed point in a culture is part of why this show still matters as much as it does,” Bilton explained. “I don’t want to lose that. 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.”
