New York – As CBS corporate leaders reflect on the $ 20 billion solution by President Donald Trump demand against the “60 minutes” of the network The news of the United States has produced some rapid and forceful stories criticism with the new administration in each episode since Trump was inaugurated.
The latter was Sunday, when CBS News helped pay an action With non -white high school and secondary musicians who had won a contest and with it, the right to play with the band of the United States Marines. The original concert, however, was canceled due to Trump’s executive order that ends diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
The Scott Pelley correspondent narrated six of the seven program stories from the inauguration of Trump, including Sunday. He examined administration policies towards Ukraine and rates, analyzed the changes in the Department of Justice and reported on the dismissals of the government guards. Shortly after his piece on the dismantling of USAID, Elon Musk suggested “long prison sentences” for those who work in the program.
Everything came at a time when the most popular and influential news transmission of television was seen to see how it would respond to a unique pressure.
“This can be a demand designed to intimidate, but they are clearly making a statement that they will not be intimidated,” said Tom Bettag, a television news producer who worked with Mike Wallace and Morley Safer in the CBS program.
Pelley, meanwhile, has quickly become a polarizing figure.
“Another week, another story of the ’60 minutes trying to discredit Trump’s policies,” wrote Brent Baker, editor of the conservatives Media Watchdog Newsbusters, on X on Sunday night.
Trump’s demand, together with a parallel investigation by the Federal Communications Commission, accuses “60 minutes” of electoral interference for the way he edited Bill Whitaker’s interview last autumn with Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris.
Two sound snacks, transmitted in “60 minute” and “Face the Nation” of CBS, represented Harris by giving different answers to Whitaker in a discussion about Israel. CBS said that Harris made both comments on his response to Whitaker and that the two shows ended up using different parts of a long sound bite. CBS argued that the apparent discrepancy was typical of the edition and not, as Trump has suggested, that different comments from Harris were used to be better.
CBS Parent Paramount Global They filed new motions In the last two weeks to obtain the demand and investigation of the dismissed FCC. Even so, Shari Redstone, head of Paramount, is anxious for a settlement, just like Disney agreed to pay $ 16 million in December To end Trump’s demand against George Stephanopoulos of ABC News. Complicating things is Paramount proposed fusion With Skydance Media, which needs the approval of the Trump administration.
Many in CBS News resist an agreement, insisting on “60 minutes” did not do anything wrong. The program executive, Bill Owens, told his staff last month that he would not apologize as part of any possible agreement.
“My priceus ’60 minute ‘is fighting, frankly, for our life,” said the correspondent Lesley Stahl earlier this month by accepting a prize of the first amendment of the Radio Televisión Digital News Association. “I am so proud of ’60 minutes’ that we are standing and fighting for the right.”
Neither Owens nor Pelley would comment if the program is trying to deliver some type of message about the demand through their work. Bettag said he believed that “60 minutes” is motivated by the importance of stories.
What the program has done during the last two months is surprising, said Bettag, now a professor of journalism at Maryland University.
“The ’60 minutes’ are such compromised journalists that they would consider fools making these stories due to what a frivolous demand is,” he said. “The demand pales compared to the monumental changes Trump is trying to implement.
Some of the segments were unusually urgent for periodic, which tends to make stories of greater scope that could take months to produce. Pelley’s March 2 report on Ukraine arrived only a few days later White House confrontation Between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Musk’s angry comment on his social media platform X was produced after the history of February 16 of Pelley on the role of the billionaire at the rapid closure of the USAID office. “The richest man in the world had reduced assistance to the poorest families in the world,” said Pelley, and said Musk collects “billions of dollars from taxpayers” for his company Spacex.
Hours later, Musk wrote in X: “60 minutes are the largest liars in the world!
Other news organizations have done an admirable job in difficult circumstances, said Bill Grew, a journalism professor at Columbia University. In addition to Pelley, he summoned the news staff of Washington Post at one time, the newspaper owner, Jeff Bezos, has shown more friendship with Trump.
The history of Sunday “60 minute” involved some elite high school students, each of them of any of whom any of the black, Hispanic, Indian or Asian ancestry, who had earned the right to play with the marine band before the show was canceled.
CBS worked with Equity Arc, an organization dedicated to increasing the number of minority students who play classical music, to organize a show for family members and friends of students outside Washington, DC. The members retired from the military bands were brought to work with the students. CBS News, who wanted to interview the students, paid the trip and accommodation of 22 of them.
Pelley called him the “concert that was not destined to be heard.”
“The original marine concert would have been seen by hundreds,” he said. “Here tonight, millions are being heard by millions.”
The March 9 report of Pelleley, “Fire Guardian Dogs” was about Trump’s efforts to fire the generals to the inspector and frustrate others that protect the complainants in government agencies. He quoted Trump saying that the shots were standard for a new administration to take office. “He is wrong,” Pelley said.
His history about the United States Department of Justice examined the resistance among some prosecutors to withdraw corruption charges against the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams.
“As he continues to intensify his attacks against President Donald Trump and the new administration, Pelley is aside to everyone else to emerge as Trump’s strongest television critic,” Paul Bedard wrote from Washington’s examiner.
In their stories, Pelley’s inexpressive voice and the methodical style could not hide the sharpness of some observations. While telling the story about Usaid, Pelley said that “it is too early to say how serious the President Trump challenging the Constitution.”
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David Bauder writes about the AP media. Follow it in http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social
