Source : THE AGE NEWS
By Michael M. Grynbaum
CBS News faced another shock wave after its chief executive, Wendy McMahon, abruptly said that she would exit her post, the latest development in an ongoing showdown between the news division and President Donald Trump.
McMahon, whose full title was president of CBS News and Stations, said in a memo that “it’s become clear the company and I do not agree on the path forward.”
Tensions between Wendy McMahon and CBS’ parent company, Paramount, have simmered for months.Credit: AP
Tensions between McMahon and CBS’ parent company, Paramount, have simmered for months, a period that McMahon described in her memo as “challenging.” Executives at Paramount had made it clear in recent days that they wanted McMahon to leave the company, according to several people with direct knowledge who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Paramount is in talks to settle a $US20 billion ($31 billion) lawsuit brought by Trump that accused 60 Minutes of deceptively editing an interview last year with his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris. Many legal experts have called the suit baseless, but Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, has said she favours settling the case. She is seeking the Trump administration’s approval for a multibillion-dollar sale of her company to a Hollywood studio, Skydance.
The situation prompted the executive producer of 60 Minutes, Bill Owens, to resign last month, saying he no longer enjoyed his usual journalistic independence. At the time, McMahon took pains to signal her support for Owens, saying that “standing behind” the producer “was an easy decision for me.”
Her embrace of Owens and 60 Minutes put McMahon at odds with Paramount executives who were anxious about the show’s reporting about the Trump administration. Within CBS News, some journalists expected McMahon to be gone within months. But the timing of her announcement, less than 24 hours after Sunday’s season finale of 60 Minutes, still raised eyebrows.
Paramount is in talks to settle a $US20 billion lawsuit brought by Trump that accused 60 Minutes of deceptively editing an interview last year with Kamala Harris. Many legal experts have called the suit baseless, Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, has said she favours settling the case.Credit: Bloomberg
George Cheeks, CEO of CBS, said in a memo that McMahon would remain at the network for “a few weeks to support the transition.” She will be succeeded for now by a pair of veteran network executives: Tom Cibrowski, who was recently named president of CBS News; and Jennifer Mitchell, president of CBS Stations.
McMahon’s tenure atop CBS News, which she took over in August 2023, has been rocky at times.
An overhaul of CBS Evening News, introduced earlier this year, has failed to connect with viewers, and ratings for the flagship newscast have fallen sharply. Besides the tussle with Trump, the news division also faced internal criticism from Redstone over a 60 Minutes segment in January about the war between Israel and Hamas.
And Redstone openly criticised McMahon’s handling of an October incident involving CBS Mornings anchor Tony Dokoupil, who in an interview had challenged author Ta-Nehisi Coates’ views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
CBS News executives rebuked Dokoupil on a newsroom-wide call, saying his interview fell short of editorial standards. Redstone said that move was “a mistake” and that Dokoupil “did a great job with that interview.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
