Lead '60 Minutes' Producer Quits After Turning Show Into Propagandistic Filth

The lead producer for CBS's "60 Minutes" resigned on Tuesday, saying he no longer had sufficient independence to run the program as he wanted.

"Over the past months, it has also become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it," Bill Owens wrote in a memo to staff obtained by Fox News Digital.

"To make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience. So, having defended this show- and what we stand for – from every angle, over time with everything I could, I am stepping aside so the show can move forward."

In other words, CBS informed Owens that he could no longer produce a weekly propaganda program on the national airwaves. So, he quit.

Owens has overseen the program since 2019. Perhaps no formerly respected news program has done more to undermine its reputation since, particularly over the past nine months. 

Bill Owens, Executive Producer of 60 Minutes, CBS News. (Photo By Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile for Collision via Getty Images)

Currently, CBS’ parent company Paramount Global is looking to settle a lawsuit from President Trump over an interview with Kamala Harris on "60 Minutes" last year. The network aired different parts of Harris's response to a question about Israel on separate nights, leading Trump to accuse CBS of election interference.

Since the election, "60 Minutes" has run a fawning review of the German government cracking down on free speech in a Western nation, a hit piece-esque essay on Trump's cabinet members (which referenced claims that Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian asset), and a puff piece on DEI.

The program has also repeatedly presented a pro-Palestinian bent to its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

In January, "60 Minutes" host Lesley Stahl conducted a bizarre interview with Hamas hostage Keith Siegel during which she asked whether his terrorist captors starved him on purpose.

"They were beating me and starving me," Siegel explained. Stahl followed by asking, "Do you think they starved you because or they just didn’t have food?"

Siegel denied that his torturers didn’t have enough food, recounting, "No, I think they starved me, and they would often eat in front of me and not offer me food."

The former hostage and his wife were kidnapped from their kibbutz during Hamas’ terror attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Siegel spent 484 days in "unimaginable conditions" in Hamas captivity. Yet Stahl wondered aloud whether the terrorists were just a bit short on supply.

Put simply, CBS could no longer claim that "60 Minutes" was an honest journalistic outfit under Owens' leadership.

No news program in America should ever be in the business of deceptively edited interviews with presidential candidates, sympathizing with terrorists, praising Soviet-style speech laws, whitewashing coordinated racial discrimination (DEI), and smearing cabinet members with baseless rumors about serving the Kremlin.

Yet over the past four months, under Bill Owens, "60 Minutes" somehow accomplished each.