NEW YORK — The venerable newsmagazine “60 Minutes” opened its 59th season on CBS-TV on Sunday night with no direct mention of the turmoil and departures that have unfolded behind the scenes in recent months. Hosts waited until the show’s end to acknowledge that anything different was going on. While speaking about the claim that there is a narrow window to make artificial intelligence safe for humanity, an announcer segued into the topics of journalism and “60 Minutes”: “For almost 60 years it has meant the same thing — journalism you can trust. Where we’re headed we’re going to need it,” the announcer said at the end of the show. He also noted that there were going to be “new faces” on the show this season. CBS News leader Bari Weiss has said that the news show would take a “new approach.” That included firing the top producer and two correspondents, among others, and installing a new chief with no TV broadcast experience. One of the show’s most famous and enduring faces, Scott Pelley, was absent, fired after a tense confrontation with bosses earlier this year. Two other correspondents were dismissed and Anderson Cooper left of his own accord. Pelley has leveled unsettling accusations against the organization’s leaders. “New management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story,” the correspondent and former evening news anchor contended in June. CBS denied that. Turmoil has been evident at “60 Minutes” for more than a year, after President Donald Trump sued the show over its editing of a 2024 interview with then-Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. It became part of a broader upheaval at CBS News after Weiss was named to the new role of editor-in-chief by parent company Paramount late last year following the arrival of David Ellison as the network’s corporate leader. Weiss appointed Nick Bilton, a former technology columnist and documentarian, as executive producer earlier this year, replacing Tanya Simon, a 30-year veteran of the show who’d been in the top job about a year. Also let go were correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi, whose segment about Trump administration deportees in a Salvadoran prison was abruptly pulled by Weiss before running a month later, and Cecilia Vega.
