NEW YORK (AP) — Saying it was time for a new approach and a new chapter, CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss has replaced the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” naming outsider Nick Bilton, a longtime technology journalist and documentarian, as the show’s new leader. Executive producer Tanya Simon will be leaving about a year after being named to the job following 30 years at the venerable Sunday evening program.In a memo to staff Thursday, Weiss and CBS News President Tom Cibrowski said their goal was “building a show that thrives in the 21st century.”“That requires a new approach,” Weiss and Cibrowski wrote, defining it 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.”
Bilton, they said, “embodies the energy and ambition that animated the founders of the show. We cannot imagine a better fit.” Bilton is also a former New York Times technology columnist.Also let go, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on anonymity: correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi, whose segment on torture in Salvadoran prisons was temporarily pulled by Weiss, running a month later; and Cecilia Vega.
