CBS adds five new correspondents to "60 Minutes" for 59th season
CBS News has appointed five new journalists, including Ross Douthat and Norah O'Donnell, as contributors and correspondents for "60 Minutes" ahead of its 59th season, following a recent leadership overhaul.
CBS News announced on Tuesday that five journalists will join "60 Minutes" as contributors and correspondents for its upcoming 59th season. The hires include New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, former CBS Evening News anchor Norah O'Donnell, author Sebastian Junger, former VICE and CNN reporter Gianna Toboni, and senior global affairs correspondent Trevor Phillips. They will work alongside existing correspondents Lesley Stahl, Jon Wertheim and Bill Whitaker.
The appointments were disclosed in a staff memo shared by the program's new executive producer, Nick Bilton, who was installed by editor-in-chief Bari Weiss after a series of departures that saw longtime producer Tanya Simon and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi, Cecilia Vega and Scott Pelley leave the show.
"We couldn’t be more excited about this news," Weiss and CBS News president Tom Cibrowski wrote in an internal memo, adding, "Onward!"
Bilton described Douthat as a leading public intellectual and O'Donnell as a "powerhouse" who will appear frequently on the program. He highlighted Junger’s nonfiction work, Toboni’s investigative reporting on topics such as ISIS and Mexican cartels, and Phillips’s reputation for rigorous questioning in the United Kingdom.
The staffing changes come after a year of turmoil at the flagship newsmagazine, which included legal action by President Donald Trump over an edited interview with then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris and broader restructuring within CBS News following Weiss’s appointment as editor-in-chief.