Maybe they will stay?
The new executive producer of “60 Minutes” vowed in a memo Thursday to uphold the CBS News property’s commitment to pursue stories “without fear or favor” and to not be “instructed by the ownership of the company” on sensitive reports, even as many at the Paramount Skydance news outlet continue to wonder if the show’s remaining correspondents — Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim — will remain with the program following a broad hollowing out of its senior ranks.
“The foundation of ’60 Minutes’ is its journalistic independence,” wrote Nick Bilton, who was named executive producer of the newsmagazine last week, adding: “We will always make the story the North Star — not relationships nor politics nor anything else.”
Bilton, who has had command of the venerable news property for all of a week, is trying to keep the trio of correspondents on board. The three met with one another on Wednesday to consult over the state of the program and how they should deal with it, according to a person familiar with the matter, and Bilton and Stahl are said to have met for dinner Wednesday evening, this person says, where she peppered him with questions about how he intended to move forward. CBS News was not able to offer an immediate comment about the details of their meeting.
