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    ‘60 Minutes’ Rebukes Paramount On-Air Over Executive Producer’s Exit

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    The show’s top producer abruptly said last week he was quitting. “Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways,” the correspondent Scott Pelley told viewers.In an extraordinary on-air rebuke, one of the top journalists at “60 Minutes” directly criticized the program’s parent company in the final moments of its Sunday night CBS telecast, its first episode since the program’s executive producer, Bill Owens, announced his intention to resign.“Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways,” the correspondent, Scott Pelley, told viewers. “None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”A spokesman for Paramount had no immediate comment, and has previously declined to comment on Mr. Owens’s departure.Mr. Owens stunned the show’s staff on Tuesday when he said he would leave the highest-rated program in television news over disagreements with Paramount, CBS’s corporate parent, saying, “It’s clear the company is done with me.”Mr. Owens’s comments were widely reported in the press last week. The show’s decision to repeat those grievances on-air may have exposed viewers to the serious tensions between “60 Minutes” and its corporate overseers for the first time.Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Paramount, has been intent on securing approval from the Trump administration for a multibillion-dollar sale of her media company to a studio run by the son of Larry Ellison, the tech billionaire.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      RFK Jr. Offers Qualified Support for Measles Vaccination

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      In an interview with CBS, the health secretary also suggested he wasn’t familiar with massive cuts to state funding for public health.In a rare sit-down interview with CBS News, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, recommended the measles vaccine and said he was “not familiar” with sweeping cuts to state and local public health programs.The conversation was taped shortly after his visit to West Texas, where he attended the funeral of an 8-year-old girl who died after contracting measles. A raging outbreak there has sickened more than 500 people and killed two young children.In clips of the discussion released Wednesday, Mr. Kennedy offered one of his strongest endorsements yet of the measles vaccine. “People should get the measles vaccine, but the government should not be mandating those,” he said.A few moments later, however, he raised safety concerns about the shot, as he has previously: “We don’t know the risks of many of these products because they’re not safety tested,” he said.For months, Mr. Kennedy has faced intense criticism for his handling of the West Texas outbreak from medical experts who believe that his failure to offer a full-throated endorsement of immunization has hampered efforts to contain the virus.Moreover, he has promoted unproven treatments for measles, like cod liver oil. Doctors in Texas believe its use is tied to signs of liver toxicity in some children arriving in local hospitals.Throughout the outbreak, Mr. Kennedy has often paired support for vaccines with discussions of safety concerns about the shots, along with “miraculous” alternative treatments.Over the weekend, he posted on social media that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine was “the most effective way” to prevent the spread of measles — a statement met with relief from infectious disease experts and with fury from his vaccine-hesitant base.That night, he posted again, this time applauding “two extraordinary healers” who he claimed had effectively treated roughly 300 measles-stricken children with budesonide, a steroid, and clarithromycin, an antibiotic.Scientists say there are no cures for a measles infection, and that claiming otherwise undermines the importance of a vaccination.Later in the CBS interview, Mr. Kennedy was pressed on the administration’s recent move to halt more than $12 billion in federal grants to state programs that address infectious disease, mental health and childhood vaccinations, among other efforts.(A judge has temporarily blocked the cuts after a coalition of states sued the Trump administration.)Mr. Kennedy said he wasn’t familiar with the interruptions, then asserted that they were “mainly D.E.I. cuts,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion programs that have been targeted by the Trump administration.Dr. Jonathan LaPook, CBS’s medical correspondent, asked about specific research cuts at universities, including a $750,000 grant to researchers at the University of Michigan to study adolescent diabetes.“I didn’t know that, and that’s something that we’ll look at,” Mr. Kennedy said. “There’s a number of studies that were cut that came to our attention and that did not deserve to be cut, and we reinstated them.” More

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      Paramount’s Shari Redstone Wants a Resolution on President Trump Lawsuit Ahead of Skydance Merger

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      Redstone, who controls Paramount, has been trying to close a merger with the Hollywood studio Skydance. President Trump’s lawsuit against CBS News is complicating matters.Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of the entertainment giant Paramount, delivered a crucial message to her board a few weeks ago.For months, Paramount’s lawyers had been jousting with representatives for President Trump, who had sued the company’s CBS News network over its segment on former Vice President Kamala Harris. Mr. Trump accused the network of deceptively editing the interview; CBS said Trump’s lawsuit was without merit.But when the board gathered this month, Ms. Redstone was clear: She was in favor of resolving the issue, two people familiar with the matter told DealBook’s Lauren Hirsch and The New York Times’s Ben Mullin.As Paramount executives weighed the best course of action, Ms. Redstone said she was in favor of moving forward in a way that would lead to some form of conclusion, including mediation.It was the first time that Ms. Redstone made her wishes known to the full board. Many at CBS News and “60 Minutes,” where Ms. Harris’s interview aired, strongly opposed a settlement.Further complicating the matter: The Federal Communications Commission is reviewing Paramount’s pending deal with Skydance. Some executives said that a settlement would smooth the way to closing the merger, even as others worried that a settlement could be interpreted as bribery for the F.C.C. to clear the Skydance deal. Mr. Trump, for his part, told reporters on Wednesday that the two were not linked.National Amusements, Paramount’s parent company, declined to comment, and Paramount has said that its legal battle with Mr. Trump is unrelated to its deal with Skydance.Ms. Redstone’s carefully written statement did not mention Paramount’s deal with Skydance — but it did underscore the fact that a pending multibillion-dollar lawsuit from the president made it difficult for Paramount to do business. She also said that she was removing herself from day-to-day discussions about the lawsuit.This week, The Times reported that Paramount had agreed to bring in a mediator.Any settlement could be perceived as the latest corporate concession to the White House, including Disney’s $15 million settlement in December and Meta’s $25 million settlement last month. The possibility of a settlement, which is likely to further embolden Mr. Trump’s crusade against the media, has been met with a strong backlash within the CBS ranks and outside the company.Though Ms. Redstone didn’t mention the Skydance deal in her remarks, people familiar with her thinking believe she’s focused on closing the deal.Paramount is also navigating the consequences of doing business under a retributive president. Beyond the Skydance deal, Mr. Trump has made clear his willingness to exact revenge when it comes to companies.“Corporations — particularly these days are often in the cross hairs of policymakers — and they have to navigate that,” Jill Fisch, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, told DealBook. “And that’s not easy.” More

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      Trump and Paramount Seek Mediator for CBS News Lawsuit

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      The move is another indicator that the two sides are exploring ways to resolve the case, over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview, out of court.Lawyers for Paramount and President Trump have agreed to appoint a mediator in his $20 billion lawsuit against CBS, according to two people with knowledge of the decision.The move to bring in a mediator is another indicator that the two sides are trying to resolve the case, over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, out of court. A mediator could help them reach a settlement, but whether they will do so remains far from certain.Paramount declined to comment. Ed Paltzik, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, said in a statement: “President Trump will pursue this vital matter to its just and rightful conclusion.”Mr. Trump sued CBS days before the 2024 election, accusing the company of deceptively editing the interview with his Democratic opponent. He later amended the suit to include Paramount as a separate defendant.Paramount, CBS’s parent company, began settlement talks with Mr. Trump this year. Those talks have created discord at Paramount, with employees at CBS News strongly opposed to any settlement. Bill Owens, the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” told the show’s staff this month that he would not apologize as part of any prospective settlement after The New York Times reported that the settlement talks with Mr. Trump were underway.The lawsuit has complicated Paramount’s merger with Skydance, a deal that would unite an up-and-coming media start-up backed by the tech mogul Larry Ellison with the gilded Hollywood studio behind “The Godfather” and “Rosemary’s Baby.” The multibillion-dollar deal, struck last year, would end the Redstone family’s decades-long run atop Paramount and anoint Mr. Ellison and his son, David, in their stead.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Harris Has a Glock, She Says on ’60 Minutes’

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      Vice President Kamala Harris has a Glock. And she has taken it to the shooting range.In a wide-ranging interview that ran on Monday night during a “60 Minutes” election special on CBS News, Ms. Harris revealed more details about her firearm, which she had teased last month in an interview with Oprah Winfrey.“I have a Glock, and I’ve had it for quite some time,” she told her “60 Minutes” interviewer, Bill Whitaker. “Look, Bill, my background is in law enforcement, so there you go.” When he asked if she had fired it, Ms. Harris laughed. “Of course I have,” she said. “At a shooting range. Yes, of course I have.”In her September chat with Ms. Winfrey, Ms. Harris said, “If somebody breaks in my house, they’re getting shot,” which elicited laughter from the host and the crowd.Ms. Harris has been talking about guns in a new way for a Democrat, with a focus on “freedom,” while also saying she supports red-flag laws and universal background checks, policies she has long backed.And she has changed her stance on other gun issues. In 2019, she said she supported a rule that assault-weapons owners sell their guns to the government. At the time, she was among five Democratic candidates in the 2020 race who supported mandatory buybacks. In July, her campaign said this was no longer Ms. Harris’s position. She supports a ban on assault weapons but does not demand buybacks.Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, Ms. Harris’s running mate, is also an avid shooter and has said he uses a shotgun to hunt pheasants.Before he joined the ticket, Mr. Walz previously received an A rating from the National Rifle Association, which once endorsed him, but that plummeted to an F after he began supporting tighter gun restrictions as governor.“I know guns. I’m a veteran. I’m a hunter. I was a better shot than most Republicans in Congress, and I have the trophies to prove it,” Mr. Walz said in his speech at the Democratic convention in August. “I believe in the Second Amendment, but I also believe that our first responsibility is to keep our kids safe.” More

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      Meet the VP Debate Moderators: CBS News’s Margaret Brennan and Norah O’Donnell

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      CBS News, the network sponsoring Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate, is focused on providing a televised forum for voters to learn more about the candidates, Senator JD Vance of Ohio and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota.The job largely falls to Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, the pair of CBS political journalists moderating what may be the last event of the campaign to reach tens of millions of Americans simultaneously.Here’s who they are.Norah O’DonnellAnchor, “CBS Evening News”Ms. O’Donnell, 50, has anchored “CBS Evening News” since 2019. She has a lengthy background in political and campaign journalism. Ms. O’Donnell joined CBS in 2011 as its chief White House correspondent, after more than a decade at NBC, where she covered the White House, Congress, and the Pentagon. Before that, she was a print journalist at Roll Call, a newspaper covering Capitol Hill.In 2020, just before the pandemic, Ms. O’Donnell and the CBS host Gayle King moderated a Democratic presidential primary debate in South Carolina. Ms. O’Donnell and Ms. King were co-hosts of “CBS This Morning” from 2012 to 2019.In July, Ms. O’Donnell said that she would step down from the “Evening News” after the election. She will become a senior correspondent at CBS News and contribute to its popular news program, “60 Minutes.”Like previous debate moderators, Ms. O’Donnell has not granted interviews ahead of Tuesday’s matchup. But CBS released a statement from her, in which she said her goal as a moderator was “to ensure a substantive and civil conversation that helps voters understand more about what can be complex policy positions.”Margaret BrennanModerator, “Face the Nation”Ms. Brennan, 44, has moderated “Face the Nation,” the flagship CBS Sunday morning public affairs show, since 2018. She is also CBS’s chief foreign affairs correspondent.Before she took over “Face the Nation,” Ms. Brennan covered the White House and the State Department. She joined CBS in 2012 following a career as a financial journalist at CNBC and Bloomberg Television. Her reporting has encompassed the Trump administration and significant international stories involving American diplomacy in the Middle East and with North Korea.“In a debate, we’re performing a public service and that is to tee up a conversation in which the candidates use the time themselves to make their case about why their policy is best for Americans,” Mr. Brennan said in a statement provided by CBS. More

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      How CBS Will Fact Check the Walz-Vance VP Debate

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      CBS is experimenting with a novel way to offer real-time fact-checking of the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday. Just don’t expect the moderators to frequently jump in.The journalistic dilemma of how to fact-check national candidates on the debate stage has cropped up again and again in the 2024 election.Should CNN’s moderators — who were relatively passive when President Biden debated former President Donald J. Trump in June — have been quicker to interject? Should ABC’s moderators — who politely but firmly clarified several of Mr. Trump’s outlandish claims at the second debate on Sept. 10 — have stayed quiet?Moderation is an art, not a science. But CBS News, host of Tuesday’s vice-presidential matchup between Senator JD Vance and Gov. Tim Walz, is using technology to try something new.A QR code — the checkerboard-like, black-and-white box that can be scanned by a smartphone — will appear onscreen for long stretches of the CBS telecast. Viewers who scan the code will be directed to the CBS News website, where a squad of about 20 CBS journalists will post fact-checks of the candidates’ remarks in real time.The code will appear only on CBS; viewers who tune in on a different channel will not see it. (Nearly every major network will simulcast the debate, starting at 9 p.m. Eastern) But it is a novel approach to guide viewers, already accustomed to watching TV while hovering over a smartphone or laptop, to supplemental journalistic material elsewhere.“The idea is to give people that second-screen experience,” said Claudia Milne, the senior vice president for standards and practices at CBS News, adding, “The audience can get the takeaway they need in a responsible and smart way.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tim Walz y JD Vance debatirán el 1 de octubre en CBS

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      Esta será la primera vez que los compañeros de fórmula de Kamala Harris y Donald Trump se enfrentarán.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]El gobernador Tim Walz de Minnesota y el senador por Ohio JD Vance han acordado participar en al menos un debate vicepresidencial este otoño. Ambos candidatos han aceptado la invitación de CBS News para enfrentarse el 1 de octubre.La cadena anunció el miércoles en la plataforma de medios sociales X que le había ofrecido a Walz y Vance, compañeros de fórmula de la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris y del expresidente Donald Trump, cuatro posibles fechas: 17 de septiembre, 24 de septiembre, 1 de octubre y 8 de octubre.“Nos vemos el 1 de octubre, JD”, escribió Walz en respuesta. La campaña de Harris confirmó que había aceptado la invitación de la cadena para ese día.El jueves, Vance dijo que también había aceptado la invitación del 1 de octubre.El senador también dijo que estaba dispuesto a celebrar un segundo debate antes, el 18 de septiembre, fecha ofrecida por la CNN. “El pueblo estadounidense merece tantos debates como sea posible”, dijo Vance en un mensaje publicado en X.La campaña de Harris-Walz indicó en un comunicado que no aceptaría una fecha adicional para la vicepresidencia. “El debate sobre los debates ha terminado”, dijo en un comunicado Michael Tyler, portavoz de la campaña. “La campaña de Donald Trump aceptó nuestra propuesta de tres debates: dos presidenciales y uno vicepresidencial”.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden to Sit Out Super Bowl Interview

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      President Biden is sitting out the Super Bowl for the second year in a row.CBS said on Saturday that the White House had turned down a request for Mr. Biden to participate in a televised interview with its news division, which would have aired in the highly rated hours ahead of the big game on Feb. 11.In a tradition dating to 2009, presidents have recorded an interview with the network that broadcasts the Super Bowl, although there have been exceptions. Donald J. Trump did not appear on NBC in 2018. Last year, Mr. Biden declined to appear on Fox, home of cable hosts like Sean Hannity who are sharply hostile toward him.But the White House has been receptive to CBS News in the past. The president was interviewed by the “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell ahead of the 2021 Super Bowl, and he participated in two lengthy “60 Minutes” pieces, in 2022 and 2023, with the correspondent Scott Pelley.“We hope viewers enjoy watching what they tuned in for — the game,” Ben LaBolt, the White House communications director, said in a statement on Saturday.The Super Bowl, typically the most-watched telecast of the year, offers an unusually large audience for a sitting president to address current events and advance his agenda to the public.And there is plenty of news for Mr. Biden to comment on. Starting on Friday, the United States carried out military strikes in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Three American soldiers were killed last Sunday in Jordan. The government just released a positive jobs report. And Mr. Biden is ramping up his re-election campaign as Mr. Trump has moved closer to clinching the Republican nomination.In 2021, Mr. Biden’s pregame interview with Ms. O’Donnell was seen live by about 10.2 million viewers; millions more viewed clips that aired on other CBS programs in the days surrounding the game.For this year’s event, CBS offered the White House about 15 minutes for an interview with Mr. Biden, with three to four minutes airing live during the pregame coverage on the network, according to a person familiar with the discussions.Mr. Biden has conducted fewer media interviews than his most recent predecessors. The president’s last major network interview took place in October, with Mr. Pelley of CBS. His State of the Union address is scheduled for March 7.Katie Rogers More