CBS Axes Two Prominent Figures, Adds 'Outsider' Executive Producer in Big '60 Minutes' Shakeup
CBS is shaking up “60 Minutes” with sweeping changes, including a new executive producer.
Bari Weiss, the top editor at CBS, canned producer Tanya Simon, senior executive producer Draggan Mihailovich, and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, according to the New York Post.
Former New York Times columnist and filmmaker Nick Bilton will replace Simon.
Simon had spent more than 30 years with the program, according to The New York Times.
SCOOP: Bari Weiss is preparing to announce broad-sweeping changes at 60 MINUTES *today*…
Sharyn Alfonsi has been fired
Tanya Simon, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, has also been fired, per source
More to come…@PuckNews
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) May 28, 2026
The Times framed the changes at “60 Minutes” as “by far the largest gamble of Ms. Weiss’s tenure” due to the show’s stature and longstanding ratings success.
Alfonsi was in the news last year for a “60 Minutes” report on torture at a Salvadoran prison that Weiss held for further reporting, including a comment from the Trump administration. Alfonsi claimed that “CBS was no longer separating editorial independence from corporate interests,” the Times reported.
Bilton, 49, said that his experience making documentaries and in TV will help him run “the most important news brand in American life.”
“Look at Don Hewitt and how he came up with the idea for this,” Bilton said. “He loved documentaries, but he did not have the patience to watch two-hour-long versions of them. So he came up with ‘60 Minutes,’ which was a series of short documentaries.”
Bilton called issues from staff “just noise,” saying it was due to changes taking place at the show.
On Election Night 2024, Cecilia Vega went on CBS and predicted “violence in the streets” of Pennsylvania if the vote isn’t counted fast enough.
Today, CBS canned her from ’60 Minutes’ pic.twitter.com/vmT9PmAwfR
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 28, 2026
Bilton said an outsider can often make changes that someone from the inside could never accomplish.
“When you take an insider and you put them inside a company, nothing changes,” Mr. Bilton said.
“I’m not saying that we’re going to change the show completely and drastically. I’m saying that there are all these approaches and ideas that we can do that I couldn’t be more excited to jump into. And I think you need that outside vision to be able to do that,” he said.
CBS News’ ratings are down 82% since 2000, and 60 Minutes is down 64% over that same period. Something has to change.
— Johnny Kunza (@johnkunza) May 28, 2026
Bilton said that he wanted “60 Minutes” to be connected to, but not controlled by, the CBS News division.
“There’s incredible people at CBS News, and I think that it’s important for me to be able to tap into some of them at certain times, and vice versa,” Bilton said.
“That doesn’t mean that it’s going to become one big organization. ‘60’ will still have its independence,” he said.
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