CBS insiders reveal how spooked bosses are dealing with tanking Evening News revamp
CBS is staying the course with its widely ridiculed dual-anchor 'Evening News' setup - despite slumping ratings.
The development, confirmed by two people 'close to the show' comes four months after Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson stepped in for Norah O'Donnell.
The insiders shared the details to The LA Times, days after new Nielsen numbers showed CBS Evenings is only scoring 3.637 million total viewers - down five percent from the week before and 14 percent for the year.
In terms of the important 25-54 demo, the drop-off was even worse, with 482,000 viewers representing declines of 9 percent and 22 percent for those two timeframes.
Moreover, much of the bleeding has been seen since February, when a former CBS News exec framed the approach as 'a disaster' in comments to DailyMail.com.
Months later, the sources who spoke to The Times said management continues to support the approach - and that there are no planned changes.
People who man the broadcast but were not authorized to speak on the matter added the show has already moved to shorter pieces, after the re-imagining's longer-form, more magazine-style stories fell flat.
Producers are now expected to get more notes from Tom Cibrowski, the network's new president, in coming days, sources said - a little over a month after the former ABC exec was tapped to helm the embattled station.
The Times piece notes how Cibrowski's old employer - the subject of a since-settled defamation suit filed by Donald Trump - is more devoted to curating content that's viewer-friendly rather than timey and poignant.
Seemingly at odds with this approach are those helming the eye network's other top news show, 60 Minutes - currently the subject of a separate suit from the president that remains ongoing.
Since Trump's suit was filed last fall, the show has remained persistent in its coverage of his administration and its policies.
Last Sunday, longtime correspondent Scott Pelley used the once-prestigious platform to report on Trump's recent use of executive orders to hone in on law firms whom he's accused of 'weaponizing' the justice system.
The segment came days after Paramount Global controlling shareholder Shari Redstone reportedly asked CBS execs to delay airing sensitive stories surrounding the president in April, and it took a decidedly critical tone.
Redstone, the daughter of Sumner Redstone, was said to have asked execs to refrain until after a planned merger with Skydance Media goes through.
Pelley appeared to complain to viewers about this dynamic in late April, days after the sudden, scornful resignation of longtime Executive Producer Bill Owens - the same man said to have been behind the visibly 60 Minutes-esque revamp of CBS Evenings.
The longtime 60 Minutes boss was enlisted to help oversee Evening News last summer by Wendy McMahon, the CBS News and Stations CEO said to be next on the chopping block, Puck first reported following disastrous ratings seen in February.
It has also spawned a ratings slump that has raised alarm bells across the industry.
'I would say it's a five-alarm fire,' a veteran television news exec further told Status on about ratings O'Donnell's replacements garnered in its initial days that have only worsened.
'It's mind boggling,' a veteran producer who spent a decade at the network further added of the strategy. 'They took the "news" out of the "Evening News!" It's not surprising the audience is leaving.'
'It's a disaster,' a former CBS News exec told DailyMail.com at the time. 'It's been critically panned, ratings down week by week and from this time last year,'
'Owens is also overstretched and feeling the pressure with this lawsuit from Donald Trump,' the insider said, just weeks before the exec's abrupt exit.
Statistics released by Nielsen during the first week of Owens and McMahon's experiment supported those theories - with total viewership down 14 percent year-over-year.
The numbers released last week showed no improvement, after the former exec emphatically told DailyMail.com: 'The experiment is failing.'
The 'veteran' television exec who spoke to Status said more of the same, asking incredulously, 'Why did McMahon and Owens decide to try to reinvent the "Evening News" in this challenging moment?
'Any excuse you give the audience to change their habit is a massive risk.'
Owens, 58, announced he is leaving 60 Minutes on April 22, saying he was 'losing his journalistic independence.'
'So, having defended this show - and what we stand for - from every angle, over time with everything I could,' he wrote to staffers in a memo that was leaked to the New York Times. 'I am stepping aside so the show can move forward.'
Owens - a respected figure who recently helped overhaul CBS's Evening News - went on to promise that '60 Minutes will continue to cover the new administration,' calling it 'too important to the country.
He had been the executive producer of the CBS newsmagazine since 2019 - the third-ever to hold the distinction.
He added during a separate '60 Minutes' staff meeting attended by the show's top team members: 'It's clear the company is done with me.'
Pelley, in the next 60 Minutes show to air after Owens' ouster, complained that journalists had been facing increased corporate oversight.
The pending sale of parent company Paramount Global to Skydance Media requires federal approval, hence the CBS parent's hesitance to enter a legal war with the president.
'Owens is also overstretched and feeling the pressure with this lawsuit from [Trum]p,' an insider said, just weeks before the exec's exit. The suit, which alleges 60 Minutes 'deceptively edited' its sitdown with Kamala Harris, is holding up Paramount's merger with Skydance
Also behind the revamp was CBS News chief executive Wendy McMahon (seen here with Owens this past May), who is set to lose her job as head of its news division as a result, insiders told Puck previously - predicting she will be gone before the deal goes through
On Wednesday, Paramount co-Chief Executive George Cheeks sought to rally his stations' reporters in CBS's newsroom, reportedly telling them, 'This is an unprecedented, challenging time for the industry... and for our company in particular.'
'For me, what's most important as a leader is how you show up in a difficult time,' he continued. 'My biggest goal is to make sure that the team feels supported and that we recognize that we have to focus on what we can control.'
'We're going to get through this,' he went on to insist, promising to protect his 'entire team.'
McMahon, meanwhile, will likely be forced out before the Skydance deal goes through, sources familiar with the talks told Puck.
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The Independent
32 minutes ago
- The Independent
Here's what to know about American Samoans in Alaska who are being prosecuted after trying to vote
FOR MOVEMENT AT 9 A.M. EASTERN ON SATURDAY, 6/7. WITH VOTING-AMERICAN SAMOANS MAINBAR. They were born on U.S. soil, are entitled to U.S. passports and allowed to serve in the U.S. military, but 11 people in a small Alaska town are facing criminal charges after they tried to participate in a fundamental part of American democracy: voting. The defendants, who range in age from their 20s to their 60s, were all born in American Samoa — the only U.S. territory where residents are not automatically granted citizenship at birth. Prosecutors say they falsely claimed American citizenship when registering or trying to vote. The cases are highlighting another side of the debate over exaggerated allegations of voting by noncitizens, as well as what it means to be born on American soil, as President Donald Trump tries to redefine birthright citizenship by ending it for children of people who are in the country illegally. Here's what to know about the prosecutions in Alaska and the status of American Samoans when it comes to voting. What is the Alaska case about? The investigation began after Tupe Smith, a mom in the cruise-ship stop of Whittier, decided to run for a vacant seat on the regional school board in 2023. She was unopposed and won with about 95% of the vote. That's when she learned she wasn't allowed to hold public office because she wasn't a U.S. citizen. Smith says she knew she wasn't allowed to vote in federal elections but thought she could vote in local or state races, and that she never would have voted if she knew it wasn't legal. She says she told elections workers that she was a U.S. national, not a citizen, and was told to check a box saying she was a citizen anyway. About 10 months later, troopers returned to Whittier and issued court summonses to her husband and nine other American Samoans. While Smith appeals the charges against her, the state filed charges against the others in April. The state argues that Smith's false claim of citizenship was intentional, and her claim to the contrary was undercut by the clear language on the voter application forms she filled out in 2020 and 2022. The forms said that if the applicant did not answer yes to being over 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, 'do not complete this form, as you are not eligible to vote.' Why can't American Samoans vote in the U.S.? The 14th Amendment to the Constitution promises U.S. citizenship to those born on U.S. soil and subject to its jurisdiction. American Samoa has been U.S. soil since 1900, when several of its chiefs ceded their land and vowed allegiance to the United States. For that reason, Smith's lawyers argue, American Samoans must be recognized as U.S. citizens by birthright, and they should be allowed to vote in the U.S. But the islands' residents have never been so considered — Congress declined to extend birthright citizenship to American Samoa in the 1930s — and many American Samoans don't want it. They worry that it would disrupt their cultural practices, including communal land ownership. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cited that in 2021 when it declined to extend automatic citizenship to those born in American Samoa, saying it would be wrong to force citizenship on those who don't want it. The Supreme Court declined to review the decision. People born in all other U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam — are U.S. citizens. They can vote in U.S. elections if they move to a state. American Samoans can participate in local elections on American Samoa, including for a nonvoting representative in Congress. Have other states prosecuted American Samoans for trying to vote? Supporters of the American Samoans in Whittier have called the prosecutions unprecedented. One of Smith's attorneys, Neil Weare, suggested authorities are going after 'low-hanging fruit' in the absence of evidence that illegal immigrants frequently cast ballots in U.S. elections. Even state-level investigations have found voting by noncitizens to be exceptionally rare. In Oregon, officials inadvertently registered nearly 200 American Samoan residents to vote when they got their driver's licenses under the state's motor-voter law. Of those, 10 cast ballots in an election, according to the Oregon Secretary of State's office, but officials found they did not intend to break the law and no crime was committed. In Hawaii, one resident who was born in American Samoa, Sai Timoteo, ran for the state Legislature in 2018 before learning she wasn't allowed to hold public office or vote. She also avoided charges. Is there any legislation to fix this? American Samoans can become U.S. citizens — a requirement not just for voting, but for certain jobs, such as those that require a security clearance. However, the process can be costly and cumbersome. Given that many oppose automatic citizenship, the territory's nonvoting representative in Congress, Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, has introduced legislation that would streamline the naturalization of American Samoans who do wish to become U.S. citizens. The bill would allow U.S. nationals in outlying U.S. territories — that is, American Samoa — to be naturalized without relocating to one of the U.S. states. It would also allow the Department of Homeland Security to waive personal interviews of U.S. nationals as part of the process and to reduce fees for them. ___ Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska, and Johnson from Seattle.
The Independent
36 minutes ago
- The Independent
A US territory's colonial history emerges in state disputes over voting and citizenship
Squeezed between glacier-packed mountains and Alaska's Prince William Sound, the cruise-ship stop of Whittier is isolated enough that it's reachable by just a single road, through a long, one-lane tunnel that vehicles share with trains. It's so small that nearly all its 260 residents live in the same 14-story condo building. But Whittier also is the unlikely crossroads of two major currents in American politics: fighting over what it means to be born on U.S. soil and false claims by President Donald Trump and others that noncitizen voter fraud is widespread. In what experts describe as an unprecedented case, Alaska prosecutors are pursuing felony charges against 11 residents of Whittier, most of them related to one another, saying they falsely claimed U.S. citizenship when registering or trying to vote. The defendants were all born in American Samoa, an island cluster in the South Pacific roughly halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand. It's the only U.S. territory where residents are not automatically granted citizenship by virtue of having been born on American soil, as the Constitution dictates. Instead, by a quirk of geopolitical history, they are considered 'U.S. nationals' — a distinction that gives them certain rights and obligations while denying them others. American Samoans are entitled to U.S. passports and can serve in the military. Men must register for the Selective Service. They can vote in local elections in American Samoa but cannot hold public office in the U.S. or participate in most U.S. elections. Those who wish to become citizens can do so, but the process costs hundreds of dollars and can be cumbersome. 'To me, I'm an American. I was born an American on U.S. soil,' said firefighter Michael Pese, one of those charged in Whittier. 'American Samoa has been U.S. soil, U.S. jurisdiction, for 125 years. According to the supreme law of the land, that's my birthright.' Confusion over voting is not just an Alaska problem The status has created confusion in other states, as well. In Oregon, officials inadvertently registered nearly 200 American Samoan residents to vote when they got their driver's licenses under the state's motor-voter law. Of those, 10 cast ballots in an election, according to the Oregon Secretary of State's office. Officials there determined the residents had not intended to break the law and no crime was committed. In Hawaii, one resident who was born in American Samoa, Sai Timoteo, ran for the state Legislature in 2018 before learning she wasn't allowed to hold public office or vote. She had always considered it her civic duty to vote, and the form on the voting materials had one box to check: 'U.S. Citizen/U.S. National.' 'I checked that box my entire life,' she said. She also avoided charges, and Hawaii subsequently changed its form to make it more clear. Is U.S. citizenship a birthright? Amid the storm of executive orders issued by Trump in the early days of his second term was one that sought to redefine birthright citizenship by barring it for children of parents who are in the U.S. unlawfully. Another would overhaul how federal elections are run, among other changes requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship. Courts so far have blocked both orders. The Constitution says that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.' It also leaves the administration of elections to the states. The case in Whittier began with Pese's wife, Tupe Smith. After the couple moved to Whittier in 2018, Smith began volunteering at the Whittier Community School, where nearly half of the 55 students were American Samoan — many of them her nieces and nephews. She would help the kids with their English, tutor them in reading and cook them Samoan dishes. In 2023, a seat on the regional school board came open and she ran for it. She was the only candidate and won with about 95% of the vote. One morning a few weeks later, as she was making her two children breakfast, state troopers came knocking. They asked about her voting history. She explained that she knew she wasn't allowed to vote in U.S. presidential elections, but thought she could vote in local or state races. She said she checked a box affirming that she was a U.S. citizen at the instruction of elections workers because there was no option to identify herself as a U.S. national, court records say. The troopers arrested her and drove her to a women's prison near Anchorage. She was released that day after her husband paid bail. 'When they put me in cuffs, my son started crying," Smith told The Associated Press. "He told their dad that he don't want the cops to take me or to lock me up.' A question of intent About 10 months later, troopers returned to Whittier and issued court summonses to Pese, eight other relatives and one man who was not related but came from the same American Samoa village as Pese. One of Smith's attorneys, Neil Weare, grew up in another U.S. territory, Guam, and is the co-founder of the Washington-based Right to Democracy Project, whose mission is 'confronting and dismantling the undemocratic colonial framework governing people in U.S. territories.' He suggested the prosecutions are aimed at 'low-hanging fruit' in the absence of evidence that illegal immigrants frequently cast ballots in U.S. elections. Even state-level investigations have found voting by noncitizens to be exceptionally rare. 'There is no question that Ms. Smith lacked an intent to mislead or deceive a public official in order to vote unlawfully when she checked 'U.S. citizen' on voter registration materials,' he wrote in a brief to the Alaska Court of Appeals last week, after a lower court judge declined to dismiss the charges. Prosecutors say her false claim of citizenship was intentional, and her claim to the contrary was undercut by the clear language on the voter application forms she filled out in 2020 and 2022. The forms said that if the applicant did not answer yes to being over 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, 'do not complete this form, as you are not eligible to vote.' A dispute entangled with a colonial past The unique situation of American Samoans dates to the 19th century, when the U.S. and European powers were seeking to expand their colonial and economic interests in the South Pacific. The U.S. Navy secured the use of Pago Pago Harbor in eastern Samoa as a coal-refueling station for military and commercial vessels, while Germany sought to protect its coconut plantations in western Samoa. Eventually the archipelago was divided, with the western islands becoming the independent nation of Samoa and the eastern ones becoming American Samoa, overseen by the Navy. The leaders of American Samoa spent much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries arguing that its people should be U.S. citizens. Birthright citizenship was eventually afforded to residents of other U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Congress considered it for American Samoa in the 1930s, but declined. Some lawmakers cited financial concerns during the Great Depression while others expressed patently racist objections, according to a 2020 article in the American Journal of Legal History. Supporters of automatic citizenship say it would particularly benefit the estimated 150,000 to 160,000 nationals who live in the states, many of them in California, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Utah and Alaska. 'We pay taxes, we do exactly the same as everybody else that are U.S. citizens,' Smith said. 'It would be nice for us to have the same rights as everybody here in the states.' Legal questions over status to be tested anew But many in American Samoa eventually soured on the idea, fearing that extending birthright citizenship would jeopardize its customs — including the territory's communal land laws. Island residents could be dispossessed by land privatization, not unlike what happened in Hawaii, said Siniva Bennett, board chair of the Samoa Pacific Development Corporation, a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit. 'We've been able to maintain our culture, and we haven't been divested from our land like a lot of other indigenous people in the U.S.,' Bennett said. In 2021, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to extend automatic citizenship to those born in American Samoa, saying it would be wrong to force citizenship on those who don't want it. The Supreme Court declined to review the decision. Several jurisdictions across the country, including San Francisco and the District of Columbia, allow people who are not citizens to vote in certain local elections. Tafilisaunoa Toleafoa, with the Pacific Community of Alaska, said the situation has been so confusing that her organization reached out to the Alaska Division of Elections in 2021 and 2022 to ask whether American Samoans could vote in state and local elections. Neither time did it receive a direct answer, she said. 'People were telling our community that they can vote as long as you have your voter registration card and it was issued by the state,' she said. Finally, last year, Carol Beecher, the head of the state Division of Elections, sent Toleafoa's group a letter saying American Samoans are not eligible to vote in Alaska elections. But by then, the voting forms had been signed. 'It is my hope that this is a lesson learned, that the state of Alaska agrees that this could be something that we can administratively correct,' Toleafoa said. 'I would say that the state could have done that instead of prosecuting community members.' ___ Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska, and Johnson from Seattle. Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, and Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu contributed to this report.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Women could be charged over miscarriages, a West Virginia prosecutor says
'911. What's your emergency?' 'Hello, I would like to report the fact that I am having a very heavy period. Can you send a police officer over right away to collect my menstrual matter and check whether I've broken any laws?' The above is not a transcript of an actual conversation in West Virginia but, the way things are headed, it could be a glimpse of what's to come. The Raleigh county prosecuting attorney Tom Truman recently warned that women who have a pregnancy loss in West Virginia could face criminal charges. To protect themselves, Truman said, women should call local law enforcement and report a miscarriage – which is the loss of a pregnancy before the 20th week. 'Call your doctor. Call law enforcement, or 911, and just say: 'I miscarried. I want you to know,'' Truman told the outlet WVNS 59News. Truman said he was personally opposed to prosecuting women who miscarry. But he warned that other prosecutors in West Virginia had indicated that they would be willing to file criminal charges against women who had lost a pregnancy via state laws related to the disposal of human remains. 'I thought these guys were just chewing on a Dreamsicle,' Truman lamented. But, he added, West Virginia's laws include definitions that are 'pretty broad-ranging' and give law enforcement a lot of discretion to go after women who have had a pregnancy loss. To be very clear about the law: while abortion is all but banned in West Virginia, the pregnant person themselves can't be prosecuted for having an abortion. Miscarriages also aren't explicitly criminalized. However, law enforcement can get creative and use legislation that governs the handling of fetal remains to punish women. And this sort of 'creativity' isn't just confined to West Virginia: following the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade, a lot of women who experience pregnancy loss in the US have been plunged into legal limbo. While it would appear that Truman was trying to be helpful, I should note that calling the police isn't necessarily the best idea in a scenario where you have experienced, or suspect you've experienced, a miscarriage. 'It's always a mistake to invite law enforcement into your reproductive life,' Kim Mutcherson, a professor at Rutgers Law School, told CNN. 'I understand the idea that caution is better than being caught up in something that you weren't anticipating, but it is difficult for me to imagine any circumstance in which I would think it was safe for someone who miscarried to call the police.' If you are going to call the police, you might want to quiz them on their understanding of the female reproductive system before going into any details. After all, how many of the men salivating over the prospect of locking up women for miscarriages do you think actually know what a miscarriage is? How many of them do you think understand that an estimated 23m miscarriages occur every year globally and about 10% to 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriages? Again, that's known pregnancies: a lot of miscarriages happen before someone even realizes they're pregnant. We don't have the full picture of why pregnancy losses occur, but they are quite often due to chromosomal abnormalities. They are often, in other words, completely out of the woman's control. And a very early miscarriage (also known as a chemical pregnancy) can be hard to distinguish from a period. Sometimes the only way to tell the difference is via medical interventions like a blood test or an ultrasound. All that said, this does strike me as a situation where a little malicious compliance wouldn't go amiss. I'm not saying women in West Virginia should call up the prosecutor's office whenever they're menstruating and ask to speak to someone about the size and consistency of their blood clots or inquire whether they'd like to send a police officer to examine the toilet before they flush. Nor am I saying that women in West Virginia should drop off their used sanitary items at their local police station so they can be thoroughly examined by the powers that be. But I'm not not saying that either! The Biden-era guidance had made it clear that hospitals in states with abortion bans cannot turn away pregnant patients who are in the midst of medical emergencies. The Trump administration has also launched an investigation into this law, which it terms 'anti-Catholic'. The 17-year-old social media influencer Sana Yousaf, whom police say was shot by a man who broke into her home, is apparently already getting blamed for her own murder. The digital rights advocacy group Bolo Bhi told the BBC that some male internet users have been asking why Yousaf was putting up online content. Ladies, if you don't want to be murdered, just remember that you shouldn't express any opinions whatsoever or ever leave the house. And you certainly shouldn't hurt a man's fragile feelings. 'Strong jawlines and prominent chins are de rigueur in Washington,' one dermatologist told Politico. In recent years, the portion of her male clients who come in seeking better-defined jaws has more than doubled. Politico has a fascinating deep dive into jawlines, power and masculinity. The Barstool Sports founder called for a missile strike on Thunberg, who recently joined other activists sailing to Gaza on an aid ship with the aim of breaking Israel's blockade. Portnoy said: 'I'll jump on Greta van Thorsten or whatever that girl's – she's sailing there. Like whoever that fuck – and I hope they hit a fucking, like, a missile on her boat. Knock that boat down.' Portnoy's comments come after the senator Lindsey Graham tweeted: 'Hope Greta and her friends can swim!' Neither Portnoy nor Graham will face any consequences for their comments, of course. Sign up to The Week in Patriarchy Get Arwa Mahdawi's weekly recap of the most important stories on feminism and sexism and those fighting for equality after newsletter promotion Please pause for a moment and take in the fact that saying you care about kids in Gaza can now be career-ending. I'll drink to that! The BBC reports that 'in 2023, Nigeria accounted for well over a quarter – 29% – of all maternal deaths worldwide'. 'You can order any kind, any size,' the actor explained. Noooo, Steve, we can't do that, the birth rate will plummet! It's been a wild week for runaway animals. In Tennessee, a pet zebra went on the lam, causing chaos on Interstate 24. Meanwhile, in the UK, a bull ran loose around the streets of Birmingham. 'This magnificent animal seemed to be enjoying an unexpected city break,' a Birmingham councillor said in a statement, noting the bull had been moved to safety. No word yet on which Birmingham sights the bull took in, or whether it popped into any china shops. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
