The former executive producer of 60 Minutes, Bill Owens, said he faced intense internal pressure from his corporate bosses to avoid certain stories that had the potential to generate backlash for parent company Paramount, in his first public remarks since his sudden resignation in late April.
In January, 60 Minutes ran a segment featuring former state department employees who had quit over how Joe Biden’s administration handled the war in Gaza. The segment drew backlash from pro-Israel organizations and unnerved Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, a strong supporter of Israel.
“She didn’t like the story,” Owens told an audience at Colby College in Maine on Friday evening, where he accepted an award given for courage in journalism.
Afterwards, Owens says, he was basically told: “Well, you’re not going to do another Gaza story, are you?” While Redstone didn’t call him directly, “that message was relayed to me by people with authority over me”, he said.
The show continued covering the story. “When I said we were going to do another Gaza piece, that was like hitting a hornet’s nest,” he told the crowd. “This idea that we were doing stories that [lacked] balance, on the face of it – it’s just wrong.”