The producer of '60 Minutes' quitting is a bad, bad sign

Bill Owens wrote in a memo to staff that he's lost editorial control over the show amid Trump's attacks on CBS' flagship news program, after 37 years.

Good evening readers. Last week marked the one year anniversary of Nightcap! It felt wrong to celebrate any kind of milestone in a newsletter about gulags, so I punted the note to this week. Thank you very much to all those who became paying subscribers when I first launched this little project a year ago, long before I realized that I’d essentially be writing weekly recaps of our government’s swan dive into fascism, and those who renewed those subscriptions last week! And thank you to everyone who continues to support my work. Your paid subs literally make it possible for me to continue to writing here, which is an endeavor I love and feel passionate about doing, even when the source material is as absolutely godawful and soul-sucking as it has been lately.

Moving onto the particular darkness of today. I saw a snappy little graphic on Bluesky Easter morning that I think lays out pretty clearly where we’re at as a nation. We’re hitting 13 out of 14 of the defining characteristics laid out below (and heavily flirting with the 14th). But today I’d like to revisit item #6 in particular: controlled mass media.

At today’s White House press briefing, there was a new face in the slot created for a “new media” reporter: right-wing podcaster and provocateur Tim Pool, who’s been accused by the Department of Justice of having been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by Russia to spread disinformation. And while the Associated Press traditionally gets the first question at WH press conferences, because it’s a globally respected newswire rather than an incel in a beanie with a microphone, Pool was somehow given the honor of the first question today.

Did Pool take this opportunity to ask whether this administration is going to comply with the Supreme Court’s unanimous order to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia? Did he ask about Trump’s tariffs crashing the world economy? Did he ask whether Pete Hegseth is going to resign over a second bombshell story revealing that he texted classified war plans to his wife and brother? No. Here was his “question,” which Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appears to have written herself:

POOL: Many of the news organizations that are represented in this room have marched in lockstep on false narratives, such as the “very fine people” hoax, the Covington smear, and now what’s being called the “Maryland man” hoax, where an MS-13 gang member — adjudicated by two different judges, I believe — is just simply being referred to as a “Maryland man” over and over again. Now, in an effort from the White House to expand access to new companies, you’ve created this “new media” seat. So, I’m wondering if you can comment on following this expansion, you’ve had numerous outlets disparage the companies that you’ve had sit here, as well as the reporters. I’m wondering if you could comment on that unprofessional behavior as well as elaborate if there’s any plans to expand access to new companies.

LEAVITT: Sure. Well, we certainly welcome diverse viewpoints in this room — which is one of the reasons we have you in here — and there’s many new faces in this room in comparison to the previous administrations. We want to welcome all viewpoints into this room. We welcome unbiased journalists who really care about the truth and the facts and the accuracy; and you rightfully pointed out the “Maryland man” story, which I from this podium when The Atlantic published it, on that very first day I came to this podium and said, “This is wrong.” The press in this room have this story wrong, and we have seen more and more evidence come to the table that we have had all along. We were always right. The president was always on the right side of this issue to deport this illegal criminal from our community, and it is despicable to see the media continue to refer to this individual as someone who is just a peaceful man living his life in Maryland. This is, was, and always has been an illegal criminal, an MS-13 gang member, and a designated foreign terrorist; and the administration maintains our position to deport these individuals from our community. So, thank you for being here, Tim. It’s great to see you. Thank you.

It’s almost comically obvious that Trump was losing control of the Abrego Garcia narrative and therefore handpicked Pool to come in and repeat the White House’s own complaint about Garcia being called a “Maryland man” in headlines, which they appear to be obsessed with, despite the fact that Garcia was literally a legal resident of Maryland. That they chose a known disinformation agent who’s all over the news for having been paid by Russia just shows how little this administration cares about even mimicking democratic norms.

This comes a few days after another “reporter” handpicked by the White House threw Leavitt this hardball:

We unequivocally find ourselves in a state-run media situation at this point, akin to what you might see in North Korea. Right-wing billionaires have taken over the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, slowly driving out all the talent and turning these long-trusted newspapers into print versions of Fox News. I’ve been staring slackjawed at headlines like this in the Post for the past several weeks:

And now today, Bill Owens, the executive producer of CBS’ long-running, legendary “60 Minutes” program has quit in protest after 37 years at the helm, saying he’s lost editorial independence and control over the show. “Over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience,” Owens wrote in a memo to staff, alluding to attacks on the show by Trump.

In November, Trump sued CBS and its parent company, Paramount Global, for $10 billion, claiming “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris was biased in her favor and deceptively edited. Since then, he’s continued to berate the network and the show, even calling for the Federal Communications Commission to punish “60 Minutes” over its reporting on Greenland and Ukraine, which he thinks has been unfair to him. (No one has ever been treated as unfairly as Mr. Trump has.) The Times reports that CBS’s decision to light the reputation of its flagship news program on fire in deference to Trump is ultimately, of course, about money: Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, “is eager to secure the Trump administration’s approval for a multibillion-dollar sale of her company to Skydance.” And to do that, she needs to kiss the ring by pushing “60 Minutes” to the right.

Needless to say, Trump (and Musk) are winning their war on the free press in this country, which is downright terrifying. Watching the White House press pool turn into a conveyor belt of clowns in month one of this second administration was depressing; watching the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times and now “60 Minutes” bend the knee and capitulate has knocked the wind out of me. Donald Trump may be an absolute buffoon, but he is correct in calculating that his only shot at a third term as president—at tossing out the Constitution and democracy entirely—is taking a sledgehammer to the news media, controlling the flow of information, and running us like a propaganda arm of the White House. And it appears that legacy media is so broken, at least financially, that it has no choice but to let him.

My advice, as always, is to subscribe to outlets that are still doing great work that speaks truth to power. Money talks. I recommend Rolling Stone and Mother Jones and Wired, in terms of fully-staffed magazines. Beyond that, Hamilton Nolan said it best today: “All of us journalists who have gone independent in recent years should probably start thinking about how we can collectively stand up to pressure from a fascist government. Which is surely coming soon.”