Katie Couric Slams ’60 Minutes’ Shake-Up Under New Boss Bari Weiss: a ‘Total Embarrassment’

Katie Couric built her career inside network news, and she’s not mincing her words about where it’s headed now.

TV Insider reported on Monday, August 10, that the former CBS Evening News anchor and 60 Minutes correspondent spoke with Status on August 9 about the shake-up currently underway at CBS News, and her assessment was blunt.

Asked to grade how broadcast networks have handled pressure from President Donald Trump‘s administration, Couric gave them a “D.”

“It’s not an F,” she added. “But unfortunately, the stories coming out of 60 Minutes about trying to direct the storytelling in a way that is less offensive to the administration or that fudges the truth is a total embarrassment. It’s hard to measure, but there is probably some anticipatory obedience, if you will.”

The comments come amid mounting turmoil at 60 Minutes under CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, who was appointed by Paramount CEO David Ellison last October.

In May, Weiss fired 60 Minutes producers Draggan Mihailovich and Tanya Simon, along with correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi, Variety reported.

Longtime correspondent Scott Pelley was fired shortly after speaking out against Weiss and the firings during a tense staff meeting, PBS reported.

Couric told Status she doesn’t believe the pattern is universal. “I don’t think this is everywhere,” she said, though she pointed to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr as having “a chilling effect on some media out there.”

As for what comes next at 60 Minutes, Couric is withholding judgment. “It will be interesting to see how the program coalesces around new hires,” the former Today host told the outlet. “We’ll see if the quality of the reporting and the quality of the pieces are still there.”

She had thoughts on Tony Dokoupil too, the man now sitting in the anchor chair she once held at CBS Evening News, and made clear she doesn’t think the show’s struggle to crack 4 million viewers comes down to leadership alone, as per TV Insider.

“I know they still command a decent-sized audience, but it’s a much older audience, and that’s been the case for quite a while,” she said, though she added that CBS’s ongoing chaos “probably” hasn’t helped ratings either.