The Story Behind the 60 Minutes Story

A "victory" for Trump in his battle with the news media?

You may have heard that Bill Owens, the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” resigned over what he said was his loss of freedom to make independent decisions. But there are elements of the story you probably don’t know.

Let’s first get one thing out of the way. “Resigned” is simply a polite way of saying he was shoved out the door — in order to smooth the way for the sale of CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global, to Skydance Media.

If the deal goes through, Shari Redstone, Paramount’s controlling shareholder, stands to make a lot of money — and according to news reports, she’s anxious to secure the Trump administration’s approval of the multi-billion dollar sale.

The sale needs the approval of the Federal Communications Commission, an arm of the Trump administration. And President Trump, to put it mildly, is no fan of “60 Minutes.” More about that shortly.

On his way out, Owens sent a note to the “60 Minutes” staff in which he stated, “Over the past months, it has also become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it. To make independent decisions based on what was right for ‘60 Minutes,’ right for the audience.”

It’s not easy to run a news program when you’re under pressure from your own parent company and from the U.S. president at the same time.

I was a correspondent at CBS News for 28 years. I didn’t know Owens, but I did know the only other two executive producers of “60 Minutes” in its history — one of whom I consider a good friend.

What I learned over those years — but that the general public doesn’t know — is that during its long tenure at CBS (it’s been on the air since 1968), the show has been in the crosshairs before. Several disputes got some play in the press, but some got no publicity at all. Even a lot of people in-house at CBS News didn’t know anything about what was going on at “60 Minutes” — or about how some of the disputes were settled.