A slip by conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat revealed that promises to "60 Minutes" from CBS don't mean anything, an expert said.
In a Friday episode of the Power Lines podcast, media expert Jon Passantino called out how Douthat answered questions during his exit interview. Douthat was announced as the newest "60 Minutes" correspondent last month, and fellow New York Times columnist Ezra Klein interviewed Douthat for his podcast.
Klein asked Douthat, "What did they say they wanted? Like, what is your sense of what '60 Minutes' is trying to become with you launching as a marquee name?"
Douthat is a longtime conservative Catholic New York Times opinion columnist, and he's coming in as veteran "60 Minutes" correspondents exit. Former correspondents like Scott Pelley, who was fired earlier this year, have criticized the show's direction under Bari Weiss, who was made the CBS News editor-in-chief under Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison.
Cecilia Vega, another fired correspondent, has said she was pushed to include footage of protesters assaulting people they believed were undercover ICE agents, but her team found no credible examples of such incidents.
Weiss and Ellison have promised that they'll back off from how "60 Minutes" is run, and Executive Producer Nick Bilton would run the day-to-day operations. Pelley notably accused Weiss of "murdering" the show shortly before he was fired, per reports.
However, Douthat's response to Klein revealed that the promises to back off from "60 Minutes" don't mean anything, according to Passantino. Douthat waved off Klein's questions and told him, "You would need to get Bari to come on your podcast to get sort of her answer to that question."
Passantino flagged that as a "slip" that showed "a total violation of the previous means in which the show has been operated with its independence." Weiss and Ellison "assured Leslie Stahl and others, 'We are not going to change any of that, Nick Bilton is going to run this show,'" Passantino explained.
"If you listen to the brand-new marquee '60 Minutes' correspondent, Ross, he didn't say that. He said, 'You got to talk to Bari. Bari's the one with the ideas here. She's the one who's going to be running the show.'" Passantino said. "Right there shows that all of these verbal assurances, they don't actually mean anything."