CBS announced a new spate of 60 Minutes correspondents – including Sebastian Junger, Gianna Toboni and Trevor Phillips – but the left-wingers obsessed over New York Times columnist Ross Douthat. The Daily Beast screeched: “Right-Wing Religious Zealot Unveiled as New Star of ‘60 Minutes’.”
Poynter.com media reporter Tom Jones was a little milder under the headline deck:
‘60 Minutes’ makes big hires, including one that will raise eyebrows
The hiring of conservative columnist Ross Douthat is likely to fuel concerns that CBS News is steering the storied newsmagazine to the right
Jones began:
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.
That phrasing is comical -- any tilt to the right is "desperate," and the relentless leftist bias is "perfectly built."
Just like Bari Weiss, the liberals throw "no real TV experience" -- as if the newbie won't be surrounded by veteran TV producers. Let's guess if CBS recruited Trump-loathing columnist David French instead, they wouldn't sweat the experience thing.
In the announcement, new executive producer Nick Bilton played up Douthat's podcast at the Times: “A Ross interview—and he’s interviewed on camera Vice President Vance, Dario Amodei, Amy Coney Barrett, Hasan Piker and Ben Sasse among others—is a special conversation, expansive and probing and news-making.“
Then there's the biggest Bari Weiss-haters on the internet, the team at Status.com. They turned to anonymous sources to trash the Douthat pick:
“The idea that Ross can be a ‘60’ correspondent is a joke,” one longtime television executive texted me shortly after learning the news.
Another anonymous source (or is it the same source? After all, they're still anonymous) slammed the whole slate of new correspondent:
“Mike Wallace, Diane Sawyer, Ed Bradley, and Scott Pelley—and now these people? They never would have been considered for the actual ‘60 Minutes,’” one industry veteran candidly told Status.
Another longtime television news veteran added: “These are the most coveted on-air jobs in TV news. These people do not have the track records on the air or the public profiles or followings to move the needle. Nor do they have the relevant experience doing this particular thing—a 10-12 minute segment—which is a particular craft that has always represented the pinnacle of TV news.”
Here again, the relentless leftist bias -- both blistering profiles of Republicans and prostrate tongue baths of Democrats -- is the "pinnacle of TV news." But these same sourpusses could have mocked Jon Wertheim when he came aboard: "They picked a tennis commentator? He's no Scott Pelley!"
Team Status concluded with another anonymous genius:
That track record does not inspire much confidence for 60 Minutes. As one television executive commented to me, “Her overhaul of CBS Mornings and Evening News have done nothing but drive the ratings down to historic lows, so there is little hope these 60 Minutes changes will do anything but the same.”
It should be pointed out that the CBS morning and evening news shows were both in third place before Weiss. By contrast, the last season of 60 Minutes -- and Weiss joined the network last October -- had an average weekly audience of 9.1 million viewers last season, a nine percent increase year-over-year. But in the eyes of the Left, the show is for lefties, so if ratings dip, it's because it's because CBS "desperately" went right.
We just keep pointing out: anyone watching CBS News programs can not see any significant, systemic lurch to the right -- despite a few exceptions to the norm.
