CBS News chief steps down as $20 billion lawsuit looms
Wendy McMahon, president and CEO of Paramount Global’s CBS News, has resigned, telling staff she no longer agrees with decisions made by upper management.
McMahon said in a memo to staff: “It’s become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward. It’s time for me to move on and for this organisation to move forward with new leadership.”
Her resignation comes in the midst of an ongoing US$20 billion lawsuit brought by Donald Trump against CBS News and parent company Paramount Global.
Paramount Global is the parent company of Network 10.
Wendy McMahon
In the suit, Trump claims a Kamala Harris interview that aired on 60 Minutes ahead of the November election was deceptively edited by CBS, at the direction of Harris’ campaign, in order to “tip the scales in favor of the Democratic Party”.
Paramount, chaired by Shari Redstone, needs the Trump administration on side, as it looks to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to green light a proposed US$8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media. In the wake of the Trump lawsuit, Redstone has been accused by CBS News staff of overreach.
Last month, Bill Owens, the long-time executive producer of the US version of 60 Minutes, quit the show, saying that directives from Paramount made it clear he “would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it”.
In January, Redstone appointed a CBS News director in a new caretaker role above Owens, after she objected to a 60 Minutes segment on the war between Israel and Hamas.
The following month, Owens told 60 Minutes staffers he wouldn’t apologise on the record for the Harris segment, despite Redstone telling the Paramount board of directors she was seeking quick resolution to the Trump case, which entered mediation in April.
Bill Owens
60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley addressed Owens’ departure on air, saying “Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways” and the former executive producer felt “he lost the independence that honest journalism requires”.
In April, Trump said 60 Minutes uses his name “in a derogatory and defamatory way”, following an interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr. He further said CBS “should lose their license”, and that the FCC should “impose the maximum fines and punishment, which is substantial, for their unlawful and illegal behaviour”.
The New York Times reports that “executives at Paramount and at Skydance “took notice of the president’s angry comments”.
“CBS is out of control, at levels never seen before, and they should pay a big price for this,” Trump wrote on his social platform Truth Social, following the airing of the Volodymyr interview.
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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