By Bill Barth
Journalism done right has always been a little bit subversive.
And it can create considerable tension between journalists and the companies that employ them.
Let’s talk about longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Sharon Alfonsi, and several of her colleagues. CBS’s new owners fired Alfonsi last week, with published reports citing unnamed company bosses explaining she had been “insubordinate.”
She wasn’t the only one. Key 60 Minutes executive producer Tanya Simon also was ousted, as was correspondent Cecilia Vega. Not long ago veteran correspondent Anderson Cooper announced he was leaving the show, not hiding his distaste for CBS under its new ownership.
Earlier, Bill Owens, an executive producer who had been with the show more than 40 years abruptly quit over differences with management. Veteran producers Draggan Mihailovich and Matthew Polevoy also were fired.
When veteran newsman Scott Pelley confronted management with his objections, he was shown the door after a legendary career.
The culture changed when CBS was acquired last year by Paramount Skydance, owned by the billionaire Ellison family which has close ties to President Trump.
Upheaval at 60 Minutes is not due to poor ratings. The venerable news magazine remains a Top 10 show, with more than 9 million weekly viewers. It’s not only, historically, the gold standard in investigative and in-depth content, it’s a financial winner as well.
Alfonsi’s apparent offense was reporting on harsh conditions at an El Salvador prison where the Trump administration had deported a large number of undocumented men. The story had been fully vetted by company lawyers, cleared for broadcast and promoted in advance. Then it was abruptly pulled, with the new executive team saying it lacked balance because the administration had not responded.
Alfonsi went public, criticizing her employer, all but accusing CBS of caving to the Trump administration. She noted, correctly, that subjects of reporting often decline or ignore requests for comment, as the administration had done. Further, she noted – again, correctly – that pulling a piece because a subject would not respond gave that subject a virtual veto over the reporting.
It’s another example of how more than one thing can be true at the same time.
Alfonsi was insubordinate to her bosses. She publicly spoke her mind – as is her First Amendment right – on the decision to pull the piece (which aired later, after edits were made and the firestorm quieted).
CBS, and the Ellison family that owns it, is not obligated to employ Alfonsi, Pelley or anyone else. Firing a rebellious correspondent is legal. Likewise, pushing out others to force cultural change in the show is within management rights.
It’s also the right of high-profile people like Anderson Cooper to take his talents elsewhere. No one is required to work for an employer whose values are not shared.
I have been a 60 Minutes fan and viewer for decades. The difference is becoming more and more noticeable. The show is getting softer. Hard-hitting stories and interviews are growing scarcer. Investigative pieces are giving ground to bland features.
How will that impact viewership? Revenues? Unknown.
In my view, it’s a loss for viewers. It’s a loss for journalism. It’s a loss for those of us who value holding the powerful and government authorities accountable for their actions and inactions.
Many years ago I met the late Mike Wallace, 60 Minutes star and arguably the most feared interviewer in journalism. It was just a quick and clumsy, “Hello, Mr. Wallace.” He was the keynote presenter at a Boston conference of IRE – Investigative Reporters and Editors. I was a young guy trying to learn the ropes. Wallace and 60 Minutes inspired everyone present who aspired to become better investigators.
That kind of journalism – telling viewers and readers stuff they don’t already know and may not want to know – is endangered these days. It has always been under attack by the powerful and their supporters. It has always been a source of tension within the companies that employ journalists.
During the years I reported and guided content at newspapers, strong investigative and in-depth work always came with blowback. We endured subscription cancellation campaigns. We endured advertising (revenue) boycotts. We dealt with angry phone calls and hostile people showing up in our building. We even had to evacuate over bomb threats.
Yet we could prove what we printed. Just because something is true, though, doesn’t mean it will land well with an audience.
In my book, that’s good journalism. The best reporters and editors are not there to make folks feel good or sugarcoat uncomfortable or inconvenient facts.
Neither is democracy built for the timid. The Founders launched an experiment underlaid with the radical belief that free people could govern themselves if armed with the truth. That construction has been at odds with human nature since the beginning, because the powerful and the ruling class resent content that exposes their spin and misdeeds.
Changing revenue models have made it tougher for disruptive journalism to survive, let alone thrive. Concentration of ownership is also a factor. So are acquisitions by companies – especially with owners linked to political power – that lack a background in journalism and its values.
If the kind of journalism practiced at 60 Minutes – and plenty of lesser-known outlets in cities and towns across America – dies or becomes hopelessly flaccid, America will be weaker. Standing up to power is hard to replicate.
Bill Barth is the former Editor of the Beloit Daily News, and a member of the Wisconsin Newspaper Hall of Fame. Write to him at bbarth@beloitdailynews.com.
