Some are calling it a coup — an inspired, out-of-the-box great hire meant to shake life into a long-running news show.
Others are saying it’s a bizarre, risky hire — of someone with no real TV experience — and just further proof of a network desperately pushing to the right, even if it means remodeling a show that was already perfectly built.
Wherever you land, you have to admit one thing: It sure is interesting, and it will make for must-see TV.
“60 Minutes,” the gold standard of TV news programs, announced several new hires Monday and the big name that stood out was New York Times conservative opinion columnist Ross Douthat.
Douthat will join the program as a full-time correspondent.
With season 59 of “60 Minutes” fast approaching, CBS News is scrambling to fill out the program’s roster after a summer of turmoil.
“60 Minutes” was thrown into a tailspin following last season with firings and departures. The newsmagazine show went from seven full-time correspondents to just three, starting with Anderson Cooper’s announcement that he was leaving after nearly 20 years.
Soon after, CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss announced the firing of executive producer Tanya Simon. She was replaced by Nick Bilton, who has virtually no TV news experience.
Also fired were veteran correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi. Then longtime correspondent Scott Pelley stood up for colleagues in a testy meeting with Bilton. He too was fired
That left Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim as the only full-time returning correspondents. They agreed to stay only after putting out a statement saying they didn’t want to see “60 Minutes” die.
But the show couldn’t possibly move forward with just three correspondents.
So on Tuesday, Bilton put out a memo to staff announcing some new additions.
The other notable hire was Norah O’Donnell, who has previously worked for “60 Minutes” and has now been named an official correspondent.
O’Donnell’s appointment was expected. Douthat’s wasn’t.
Bilton wrote to staff, “Ross is one of the preeminent public intellectuals in America today, a thinker of uncommon rigor and a journalist of deep empathy.”
Bilton later added, “He makes conversational topics approachable and renders characters and points of view with richness and compassion. Ross will bring this big and ranging curiosity to our air.”
But critics will be watching to see if Douthat brings something else to the air: his conservative perspective.
They also will watch to see if he can make the transition from a newspaper opinion columnist to a down-the-middle TV reporter. But it should be noted that Douthat has hosted a popular Times podcast, “Interesting Times.” On that show, he has interviewed such guests as Vice President JD Vance, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and former Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse.
Douthat and Weiss were colleagues at The New York Times and, for those who fear Weiss will push CBS News and even the irreproachable “60 Minutes” to the right, this move will be examined under a microscope.
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In a note announcing Douthat’s departure, New York Times opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury wrote, “For 17 years and in thousands of columns, Ross has left an indelible mark on this report: arguments so carefully built that even readers who arrived hostile stayed to see how they’d hold up.”
Kingsbury added, “He was right about things early, wrong about things honestly and never, not once, boring.”
It is, unquestionably, a loss for the Times, as Douthat was among the news organization’s most prominent conservative voices.
“60 Minutes” also will add three contributors.
The most well-known is Sebastian Junger, the author of many best-selling books, including “The Perfect Storm,” which chronicled the fate of the fishing boat Andrea Gail and was turned into a film starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg. Junger also has been a documentarian, broadcast journalist and war correspondent.
Gianna Toboni, a former Vice News correspondent, will become a “60 Minutes” contributor and CBS News national correspondent. Trevor Phillips, a British journalist who joined CBS last month, also will contribute to “60 Minutes.”
The New York Times’ Benjamin Mullin and Michael M. Grynbaum wrote, “The stakes are high for ‘60 Minutes’ to prove its journalistic mettle next season. The three correspondents fired from the show have said executives at CBS News tried to inject political bias into their segments. CBS News has denied those claims, and Ms. Weiss has said so-called editorial interference is part of her job as editor in chief.”
In his note to staff, Bilton wrote, “Ross, Sebastian, Gianna and Trevor are entrepreneurial journalists who understand how to reach modern audiences.”
Other possibilities
In his Status media newsletter, Oliver Darcy wrote before Monday’s announcement that CBS News bigwigs were working hard to fill out the “60 Minutes” roster.
Darcy wrote, “I’m told that there have been dozens of screen tests conducted in recent weeks for potential ‘60 Minutes’ correspondents, a practice several veteran television executives I spoke to described as odd. As they noted, those under consideration for a job on broadcast television’s most prestigious news program should already have a body of work to review and a screen test would also do little to shed light on a journalist’s investigative reporting skills. In any event, CBS News has been asking those interested in a job to participate in the tests — even those under contract at other networks, creating somewhat of a stir within the industry.”
Darcy added, “The tests themselves are also unusual. Status has learned that some have featured mock interviews with a person playing Ghislaine Maxwell, the disgraced socialite and close Jeffrey Epstein associate. Weiss has long wanted to secure an interview with Maxwell, listing her earlier this year in a Hollywood Reporter interview as one of the handful of sit-downs she would like to secure. So, in that context, perhaps the Maxwell mock interview makes a little sense, though it is nevertheless a bizarre way in which to interview for any job, nevermind ‘60 Minutes.’”
Darcy also reported that another name to keep an eye on as a potential “60 Minutes” correspondent is Mariana Van Zeller of National Geographic.
Kaitlan Collins is cool under pressure
Is there a more unflappable journalist than CNN’s Kaitlan Collins?
President Donald Trump has spent the past decade or so insulting a multitude of journalists, but no one has been on the receiving end of more hostility from Trump than the 34-year-old Collins.
He has called her “fake news,” complained that she never smiles and, at last week’s White House Correspondents’ dinner and later on Truth Social, tried to insult her by comparing her to trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney — apparently assuming the comparison would be demeaning.
Yet every time Trump mocks, trolls and insults her, Collins remains professional and resolute.
On Monday, after a weekend full of derogatory comments from Trump, Collins appeared on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart and said she was “not surprised” by Trump’s attacks at the WHCA dinner, adding that it “happens pretty regularly inside the Oval Office.”
Stewart noted how professional Collins’ questions are when she is talking to Trump. They are as direct as can be.
Collins said, “That’s why I ask the questions the way I do, is because I want anyone to be able to listen to what I’m asking — whether that’s at a briefing or during a moment with the president — and think, you know, I want to know the answer to that, too, or that is a good question. I don’t want it to only serve one audience or one political leaning, I want anyone — from my family in Alabama, to people in the White House, to people in Washington — to be able to hear that question and think, ‘What is the answer to that?’”
Then she revealed the secret to her success in dealing with Trump and not losing her composure in the midst of being verbally attacked by the president of the United States.
“It’s really not about me, and I don’t want it to be about my reaction,” Collins told Stewart. “And so I think if you let it become about that, then it becomes a back and forth between the two of us. And instead, I think it’s more effective to remind people in those moments when he is insulting me or when he is criticizing me about the question I asked; or the reporting that I did that he was so angry about in this moment; and the fact that I got an award for it really bothered him, clearly. And so I just think in those moments, it’s important to put the reminder back on the work, on the question, and on the non-answers that we get.”
Collins has earned widespread respect from fellow journalists, and her grace under Trump’s hostility appears to get under Trump’s skin — which is probably why he insults her so often.
A good friendship
CNN correspondent Kaitlan Collins, right, hugs CNN colleague Wolf Blitzer after receiving an award at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner last Friday, as President Donald Trump looks on. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey Jr.)
Collins also told Stewart that she and CNN colleague Wolf Blitzer are close friends. The two even rode together to last week’s WHCA dinner, and Collins said Blitzer called her every day for several days after Trump verbally attacked her there.
At the dinner, Blitzer recognized Collins as the winner of a WHCA award for reporting under deadline pressure for her coverage of the contentious Oval Office meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February 2025.
On CNN’s “The Situation Room” on Monday, Blitzer told viewers, “I had the honor of presenting awards to various journalists at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner Friday night. One of them was my good friend and colleague Kaitlan Collins.”
Blitzer added, “Having worked very closely with Kaitlan over the years, both Pamela (Brown, co-host of ‘The Situation Room’) and I can attest to her excellent reporting and deep sourcing within the administration. She is a true professional, a class act, and we are so very proud of her.”
Then he took a jab at Trump, saying, “And despite what President Trump keeps saying, she has a truly beautiful smile.”
Media tidbits
- LateNighter’s Jed Rosenzweig with “Byron Allen’s Late-Night Ratings Superpower? Retention.”
- The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Flint with “Paramount Wanted to Close Its Warner Deal Quickly. Now It’s in Limbo.”
- The New York Times’ Tiffany Hsu with “A TV Judge and an R&B Singer Fought Online Trolls. They Didn’t Get Far.”
- The New York Times’ Alexandra Alter with “How A.I. Books Sneak Their Way Into Stores.”
- The New York Post’s Ryan Anderson with “Reporters fighting, taking cheap shots following lack of Kyle Shanahan reporting.”
- And here’s Mediaite’s Ahmad Austin Jr. with “Dan Patrick Blasts ESPN, Local Reporters for ‘Holding’ Story About Car Crash Involving San Francisco 49ers Coach: ‘What Are We Hiding?’”
- And one more on this story: It’s Awful Announcing’s Matt Yoder with “Adam Schefter-Kyle Shanahan story pulls back the curtain on insiderdom once again.”
- Hall of Fame linebacker Luke Kuechly, who spent all of eight NFL seasons playing for the Carolina Panthers, will be Netflix’s new No. 1 game analyst this upcoming season. The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand has the details. Netflix will air five games this season, although two are a part of a doubleheader on Christmas Day.
Hot type
- The Atlantic’s Katherine J. Wu with “The Unmaking of Anthony Fauci.”
More resources for journalists
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Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.
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