Inside the '60 Minutes' Storm

Late Tuesday morning, chatter started spreading through the halls of CBS News. A one o’clock meeting had suddenly been scheduled for the “60 Minutes” staff. It was short notice and there was no stated agenda. Alarm bells started to ring. By early afternoon, as producers and correspondents filed into a room on the 14th floor of the CBS Broadcast Center on Manhattan’s West Side, the tension was unmistakable.

Anderson Cooper appeared on Zoom from Rome, where he’s covering the death of Pope Francis. Inside the room was CBS News boss Wendy McMahon, Lesley Stahl, Scott Pelley, and the rest of the show’s top-tier staff—many of whom had spent decades working with Bill Owens. He stood at the front, visibly emotional, and delivered the news himself: after 37 years at CBS News, and six leading "60 Minutes" as executive producer, he would be stepping down in the coming weeks. “So an email is going to go out now that says I’m leaving,” he said, adding, “It’s clear that I’ve become the problem. I am the corporation’s problem.”

Owens, of course, wasn’t simply announcing a retirement. He was sending a message: "60 Minutes" is under sustained corporate pressure and he was doing what he thought was best to protect the storied newsmagazine's reputation. Fighting back tears, he described a breaking point between the show’s editorial independence and corporate control. “I do think this will be a moment for the corporation to take a hard look at itself and its relationship with us,” he told the room.

“People have asked, should we walk out? No. The opposite," Owens said. "I really, really, really believe that this will create a moment where the corporation will have to think about the way we operate, the way we’ve always operated, and allow us to operate like that.”

This account is largely based on audio of the meeting obtained by Status, providing a verbatim record of what was said inside the room as Owens addressed the staff. The recording captured the emotional tenor of the moment—including the various applauses and unmistakable strain in Owens’ voice—as well as the remarks from McMahon, Stahl, and Pelley that followed.