NEW YORK — As CBS company leaders ponder settling President Donald Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit against the network’s “60 Minutes,” America’s storied newsmagazine has produced some quick and hard-hitting tales vital of the brand new administration in each episode since Trump was inaugurated.
The most recent was Sunday, when CBS Information helped pay for a performance that includes non-white center and highschool musicians who had gained a contest and with it, the best to play with the U.S. Marine Corps Band. The unique live performance, nevertheless, was canceled due to Trump’s govt order ending variety, fairness and inclusion efforts.
Correspondent Scott Pelley narrated six of the present’s seven tales since Trump’s inauguration, together with Sunday’s. He examined the administration’s insurance policies towards Ukraine and tariffs, checked out modifications within the Justice Division and reported on firings of presidency watchdogs. Shortly after his piece on the dismantling of USAID, Elon Musk advised “lengthy jail sentences” for these engaged on the present.
All got here at a time when tv’s hottest and influential information broadcast was being watched to see how it could reply to a singular strain.
“This can be a lawsuit that’s designed to intimidate, however they’re clearly making a press release that they won’t be intimidated,” stated Tom Bettag, a longtime tv information producer who labored underneath Mike Wallace and Morley Safer on the CBS present.
Pelley, in the meantime, has shortly grow to be a polarizing determine.
“One other week, one other ‘60 Minutes’ story making an attempt to discredit Trump insurance policies,” Brent Baker, editor of the conservative media watchdog NewsBusters, wrote on X on Sunday night time.
Trump’s lawsuit, coupled with a parallel Federal Communications Fee investigation, accuses “60 Minutes” of election interference for the way it edited Invoice Whitaker’s interview final fall with Trump’s 2024 opponent, Kamala Harris.
Two sound bites, broadcast on “60 Minutes” and CBS’ “Face the Nation,” depicted Harris giving completely different responses to Whitaker in a dialogue about Israel. CBS stated Harris made each feedback in her reply to Whitaker and that the 2 exhibits ended up utilizing completely different elements of a protracted sound chew. CBS argued the obvious discrepancy was typical of enhancing and never, as Trump has advised, that completely different remarks by Harris had been used to make her look higher.
CBS mum or dad Paramount International filed new motions previously two weeks to get each the lawsuit and the FCC probe dismissed. Nonetheless, Shari Redstone, head of Paramount, is reportedly anxious for a settlement, very similar to Disney agreed to pay $16 million in December to finish Trump’s lawsuit towards ABC Information’ George Stephanopoulos. Complicating issues is Paramount’s proposed merger with Skydance Media, which wants approval from the Trump administration.
Many at CBS Information resist a settlement, insisting “60 Minutes” did nothing incorrect. The present’s govt producer, Invoice Owens, instructed his workers final month that he wouldn’t apologize as a part of any potential settlement.
“My valuable ‘60 Minutes’ is combating, fairly frankly, for our life,” correspondent Lesley Stahl stated earlier this month in accepting a First Modification award from the Radio Tv Digital Information Affiliation. “I’m so happy with ‘60 Minutes’ that we’re standing up and combating for what is correct.”
Neither Owens nor Pelley would touch upon whether or not the present is making an attempt to ship any type of message in regards to the lawsuit by its work. Bettag stated he believed “60 Minutes” is motivated by the significance of the tales.
What the present has achieved through the previous two months is hanging, stated Bettag, now a journalism professor on the College of Maryland.
“The ‘60 Minutes’ individuals are such dedicated journalists that they’d take into account it silly to be doing these tales due to what’s a frivolous lawsuit,” he stated. “The lawsuit pales compared with the monumental modifications Trump is making an attempt to implement. These correspondents and producers know that this can be a second that requires their absolute best work.”
Among the segments had been unusually pressing for the newsmagazine, which tends to do longer-range tales that would take months to supply. Pelley’s March 2 report about Ukraine got here solely days after the White House confrontation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Musk’s offended touch upon his X social media platform got here after Pelley’s Feb. 16 story in regards to the billionaire’s function within the fast shutdown of the USAID workplace. “The world’s richest man had lower off help to the world’s poorest households,” Pelley stated, noting that Musk collects “billions of taxpayer {dollars}” for his SpaceX firm.
Hours later, Musk wrote on X: “60 Minutes are the largest liars on the earth! They engaged in deliberate deception to intrude with the final election. They deserve a protracted jail sentence.”
Different information organizations have achieved admirable work underneath tough circumstances, stated Invoice Grueskin, a Columbia College journalism professor. In addition to Pelley, he cited the information workers of the Washington Publish at a time the newspaper’s proprietor, Jeff Bezos, has proven extra friendliness to Trump.
Sunday’s “60 Minutes” story concerned some elite highschool college students — every of them both of both Black, Hispanic, Indian or Asian descent — who had earned the best to play with the Marine band earlier than the present was known as off.
CBS labored with Fairness Arc, a corporation dedicated to rising the variety of minority college students taking part in classical music, to arrange a present for household and pals of the scholars outdoors Washington, D.C.. Retired members of army bands had been introduced in to work with the scholars. CBS Information, which needed to interview the scholars, paid for the journey and lodging of twenty-two of them.
Pelley known as it the “live performance that was not meant to be heard.”
“The unique Marine Band live performance would have been seen by lots of,” he stated. “Right here tonight, these musicians are being heard by tens of millions.”
Pelley’s March 9 report, “Firing the Watchdogs,” was about Trump’s efforts to fireplace inspector generals and thwart others who shield whistleblowers in authorities businesses. He quoted Trump as saying the firings had been customary for a brand new administration taking workplace. “He is incorrect,” Pelley stated.
His story in regards to the U.S. Justice Division examined the resistance amongst some prosecutors to drop corruption costs towards New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams.
“As he continues to step up his assaults on President Donald Trump and the brand new administration, Pelley is elbowing apart all others to emerge as Trump’s loudest TV critic,” wrote Paul Bedard of the Washington Examiner.
In his tales, Pelley’s deadpan voice and methodical model couldn’t conceal the sharpness of some observations. Whereas narrating the story about USAID, Pelley famous that “It is too quickly to inform how critical President Trump is in defiance of the Structure.”
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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Comply with him at and
