David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount, promised to respect the editorial independence of “60 Minutes” in a call with Lesley Stahl, one of the show’s correspondents, she told The New York Times on Tuesday.

The call to Stahl, made Sunday, was one of the first signs that Ellison was personally taking steps to calm the turmoil at the news network after the firing of the show’s leadership and several of its star correspondents. The overhaul, overseen by Bari Weiss, the network’s editor-in-chief, was met with a rebuke from Scott Pelley, a star correspondent at “60 Minutes” who has since been fired.

Stahl told the news program’s staff about Ellison’s call during a Champagne toast she held at the “60 Minutes” offices in New York City on Monday in an attempt to shore up morale at the program.

Remaining Stars Don’t Want ’60 Minutes’ to Die

She, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim, the remaining stars of the program, had agonized about whether to stay in the aftermath of the staff changes and Pelley’s firing. But in a letter to the show’s staff Friday, they concluded that they had to remain at the show because they didn’t “want to see ‘60 Minutes’ die.”

“My toast was, ‘to us,’ meaning the survivors,” Stahl said in a text message Tuesday. “Maybe ‘us’ with a twinge of survivor’s guilt.”

Ellison’s takeover of Paramount last year raised questions about the kind of steward he would be for CBS News. Ellison has been friendly with President Donald Trump as his company, Paramount, seeks federal sign-off on a $111 billion deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. He has said he wants CBS News to appeal to what he describes as the 70% of Americans who consider themselves center-right or center-left.

In an interview with the Times, Pelley also said that Weiss had put her “thumb on the scale” for Trump during the last season of “60 Minutes,” a charge the network has denied. That assertion echoed an earlier complaint from Sharyn Alfonsi, another correspondent, who said that Weiss’ editorial guidance on one of her stories was “political.”

Last week, scores of prominent journalists, including well-known veterans of CBS News, signed an open letter to Ellison, who took over Paramount’s CBS last year, asking him to commit to the show’s independence. He has not yet weighed in publicly.

Paramount had no immediate comment.

Questions Remain About the Program’s Future

The tumult at “60 Minutes” has raised questions about the future of the program, which must forge ahead without many of its biggest stars or longest-tenured leaders.

Three of the show’s seven correspondents, including Pelley, Alfonsi and Cecelia Vega, were fired; a fourth, Anderson Cooper, left. Nick Bilton, a technology journalist and filmmaker who is the show’s new executive producer, has no broadcast experience. And the firings have widened a rift between the leaders of CBS News and the staff at “60 Minutes,” who are used to operating with a high degree of independence from the network.

There are more pressing concerns, too: “60 Minutes” is scheduled to air reruns until the next season begins in September. The show typically has correspondents record new introductions to their segments to update anything that has become outdated. But many of the recent segments involved the correspondents who were recently fired.

One example is an interview with filmmaker Christopher Nolan, conducted by Pelley, that was scheduled to air again alongside the premiere of “The Odyssey” this summer.

During Stahl’s toast Monday, Wertheim also weighed in. He turned to Bilton and told him that he had been dealt “a hell of a hand,” noting that there were “bridges to build and fences to mend and assorted other structural metaphors,” according to two people familiar with his remarks.

“But there’s a path here,” he told Bilton.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Benjamin Mullin and Michael M. Grynbaum/Lucia Vazquez

c.2026 The New York Times Company