60 Minutes debuted its new season on Sunday with an exclusive sit down with an Air Force officer who told of his harrowing rescue in Iran. It featured a hideen camera segment on pardon brokers who collect hundreds of thousands or even millions to try to secure Trump’s clemency. And it profile the Los Angeles Rams and head coach Sean McVay.
Yet despite new graphics, the debut of new correspondent Ross Douthat for its one-minute ender, and an increased social media presence, the show had much the same look and feel of previous seasons. The story selection was in the realm of past seasons.
What is different, though, is the extra scrutiny the show is under, in the wake of the purge last spring of executive producer Tanya Simon and top producers, as well as correspondents Cecilia Vega, Sharyn Alfonsi and Scott Pelley, each of whom has accused the executive higher ups of interference. Just this past week, the former managing editor called the show “a casualty of corporate priorities and ideological intrusion.” CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss pushed back on the claim in June, telling The Wall Street Journal, “What’s being called ‘editorial interference’ is in reality the job description of an editor in chief.” And shortly after he became the new executive producer, Nick Bilton told staffers that the show “will never be instructed by the ownership of the company on these stories.”
The corporate ownership has done plenty to raise suspicions, starting with the decision by the previous owners of Paramount, the parent company of CBS, to settle a lawsuit Donald Trump filed against the network for the way that 60 Minutes edited an interview with Kamala Harris. Then, new owners Skydance have waged a not-so-subtle effort to woo Trump as it sought administration sign off for its proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Interference or not, the risk that 60 Minutes faces is ratings, or losing the show’s position as the No. 1 news show on television.
The first segment was Norah O’Donnell’s exclusive sit down with an Air Force colonel whose plane was shot down over Iran, who relayed the story of his survival and then rescue, calling it a “modern day miracle.” The network had extensive cooperation from the Pentagon, with interviews with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as declassified footage of the operation.
The segment was narrowly focused on the rescue itself, as the officer described his free fall, major injuries and his ascent up a 7,000 foot ridgeline before being spotted two days later. The officer said at the end of the segment, “It’s a story of the teamwork, the training, of the faith, of the decisions and the leadership to do something that will live in history as an example of what America’s willing to do, in order to uphold our promise and leave no man behind.”
The sit down was one that all networks crave, and it is one that the Pentagon has been anxious to promote. There was a mention during the segment of the “costly and unpopular war that has taken the lives of 18 service members.” It remains to be seen how 60 Minutes will explore further aspects of the conflict, and if it will turn its attention to one of the more alarming stories circling in D.C.: Hegseth’s purge of top experienced generals.
The next segment put a spotlight on pardon brokers, with a hidden camera used to capture two of them, Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl, as they tried to entice Ammon Covino, a convicted felon, and his wife, Crystal, into spending $300,000 for their alleged ability to get a pardon request in front of Donald Trump.
The camera caught Burkman telling them, “You have to put pressure on the president from all directions in a consistent way to force his hand. We literally want to put the pen in his hand and get him to sign it because he’s tired of hearing about it.”
The show pointed out that Burkman and Wohl are well known for their political stunts, so their involvement in business of pardon brokering isn’t all that shocking. In the footage that aired, they didn’t seem all that rattled by the revelation of a hidden camera. They also tried to engage in a bit of relativism, i.e. that their activity was little different from what went on in the Biden and Obama administration.
That’s why the more telling moment of Lesley Stahl’s segment were the stats: About 70% of Trump’s clemencies in his second term have not gone through the standard channels the DOJ. If the president’s pardons of the January 6th rioters are included, the figure is 92%. And while the White House claimed that Trump was behaving in an “ethically sound manner,” the segment pointedly featured a college professor who said that, despite the proliferation of brokers charging ever higher fees, “in the end, it falls on the administration.”
Also important is that the show ran through some of the notables who did get pardons, including the CEO of Binance who “boosted a Trump family crypto venture, though both sides deny any connection to the pardon,” Stahl noted.
The third segment was devoted to the Los Angeles Rams, with 60 Minutes and Bill Wertheim getting access to its preseason practice, billing the team “as maybe the — premier NFL franchise: blue chip; gold standard.”
There wasn’t mention of the drubbing that the Rams took in its opener against the 49ers, but that was perhaps foreshadowed by McVay during his interview. He said, “Success is never linear, you know? It’s– it– it’s always up and down.” He also admitted that he was “not in a good place right now,” referring to the progress of practice.
Douthat appeared for the closing segment, The Last Minute, to talk about the latest warnings about AI, but he also made a pitch for the show’s future, with the drama of the last year left unsaid. “We may have a narrow window this year, not the next 10, to make artificial intelligence safe for humanity,” he said. “That clock is ticking, and so is ours. For almost 60 years, it has meant the same thing: Journalism you can trust. Where we’re headed, we’re going to need it.”
