Nick Bilton recently flew to New York to meet with director Martin Scorsese to discuss the screenplay he adapted from his forthcoming book with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson about a Hawaiian crime syndicate, when a very different career opportunity presented itself. During the trip, Bilton also met up with CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, whom he got to know professionally in Los Angeles, and she gauged his interest in taking over 60 Minutes. “It was an unbelievable opportunity and I couldn’t get it out of my head,” Bilton recalled Thursday, just hours after being named the iconic newsmagazine’s new executive producer.
“I said, look, I want to present my ideas to you and the way I would want to do it, and if you are interested in them, then we can move the conversation forward,” Bilton said in an interview. “And so I did, and she loved them, and I have so many ideas and innovative ideas that I just cannot wait to bring to 60.”
Weiss’s selection of Bilton sent shock waves through the network and coincided with a broader shake-up as CBS News cut ties with 60 Minutes executive producer Tanya Simon, daughter of late 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon; veteran executive editor Draggan Mihailovich; and correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharon Alfonsi, the latter who accused Weiss in December of making a “political” decision in abruptly pulling her report on a notorious El Salvadoran prison, one of several missteps throughout Weiss’s seven-month tenure.
