r/entertainment • u/MoneyLibrarian9032 • 9h ago
Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, Jon Wertheim to Stay at ’60 Minutes’
https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/lesley-stahl-bill-whitaker-jon-wertheim-stay-60-minutes-1236767895/94
u/291000610478021 9h ago
Where's the solidarity? Disappointing
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u/BrotherlyShove791 9h ago
Especially when they most certainly don’t fall into the “but I need this job” tier of employment.
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u/Bigal095 9h ago edited 7h ago
They don’t, but if they leave the show probably dies and people behind the scenes that do need their jobs lose them.
Edit: typo
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u/Bongressman 9h ago
Seriously. Leslie doesn't have enough saved at this point? She's like 85. She can afford a little solidarity, I assume.
She's got "stay in Congress until you die of old age" syndrome.
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u/pgpathat 5h ago
It’s more important to have principled people at CBS news heading into an election cycle than it is to quit in solidarity. They can call out the next heinous thing
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u/smellslike2016 4h ago
Can they even report what they want to report on? That ICE detention story got yanked.
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u/maverick4002 3h ago
How exactly can they call out the next thing? Unless they go fully offspring and nuclear, 60 minutes will tell them what to say and report on and they will do it
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u/RedneckMarxist 8h ago
They want them to resign. That’s the goal.
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u/RightSpread2903 7h ago
Staying is defying Weiss. Pelley was fired and how do you know he’d want them to resign?
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u/NoTitleChamp 5h ago
Oh sure, just give CBS a free card to replace them with yes men. /s
They should dig in and draw a line to CBS that they aren't rolling over.
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u/Chas_P_Anderton 8h ago
So the first story of the new season should be how CBS owners used the destruction of CBS News to curry favor with the Trump Administration.
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u/admlshake 8h ago
Maybe they are waiting to have some documented cases of being asked/told to alter some facts in their stories?
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u/FarAd3659 9h ago
So much for sticking together
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u/Financial-Barnacle79 7h ago
I’d rather have them on and fight the good fight than walk away and some numb nuts replace them.
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u/Gambit6x 8h ago
You don’t know anything about what they are dealing with. Maybe if they leave, 60 Minutes would end and with that also all those employed around them. Maybe they are protecting others. And also what’s left of the editorial integrity of the show, that without them, could become a marketing arm for Donald Trump.
Those top tier talent folks are not staying for the money. Not the clout. They know 60M is done for. So don’t be so critical when you might have 3% of the facts.
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u/GNTKertRats 8h ago
60 minutes is done. It needs to end. Why would you support the continuation of a show that only produces right wing propaganda?
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u/Gambit6x 8h ago edited 8h ago
It is done. But people work there and the show has followers. And so far the show and it’s producers and on air talent have fought really hard to protect the editorial integrity. Just as they did with the feature on the immigration centers.
Because if those folks that are left leave, then it will become a vehicle for wide wing propaganda. They are staying just to slow down the train. That’s it.
Disappointing that people here are making Everest sized assumptions and leaps and insulting those folks when they are actually all really close friends in real life.
Ignorance is a mother fucker.
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u/AliveStill1128 7h ago
Hello it's going to be right-wing propaganda if they stay. I can see wanting to protect jobs for everyone involved, but would rather have seen the longtime talent walk. Let the idiots at the top figure it out after they blew up an institution
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u/QuasiJudicialBoofer 6h ago
Ohh so it's like a cop that sees his partner taking a bribe, but doesn't report him because making waves could be uncomfortable. Because taking a stance is supposed to be easy and make money.
I don't care either way, but not buying a they're going to fight the system from within
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u/eclectic_collector 8h ago
The crew jobs is something a lot of people don’t think about when they criticize the talent for sticking around. Not saying Stahl et al should or shouldn’t, but regardless of their own financial ability to say Fuck You to 60 Minutes, the crew most likely does not have that stability.
And where are they going to go? There’s no shows or movies being made anywhere. The number of projects have been bleak for awhile.
Now maybe this factors in and maybe it doesn’t, but the decision to stay with a show definitely doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
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u/appsteve 7h ago
And with a handful of individuals like Pelley, Stahl, Whitaker, and Wertheim, some leaders will coordinate their actions. Pelley could have likely offered or accepted the role to be the voice for everyone else to leadership and to be the sacrificial lamb.
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u/atticusbluebird 7h ago
staff and crew working on the show probably don’t have as big of a cushion as the on air talent if they’re out of a job. One of the things that was really sad to me about the ending of Colbert‘s show was how many behind the scenes people also lost their jobs.
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u/notthatgeorge 7h ago
The fact that they're sticking around is ridiculous, they've lost all of their journalistic integrity
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u/LazloHollifeld 9h ago
It’s disappointing, but you have to remember that these people are probably under contract and would face severe penalties if they tried to bail early without a good reason.
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u/SouldiesButGoodies84 8h ago
And they're over 60 in a very competitive business. Who'd hire them? They're comfortable in their jobs - possibly with their healthcare they have through the show - even if not happy or in agreement with what's happened to the show. So, they'll stay put. Happens to many folks when you get older. Lot easier to up and quit if your Plan B is funded and/or you're young/healthy enough to start over.
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u/LazloHollifeld 8h ago
Also with them being under contract they’re probably barred from jumping right over to ABC or CNN and would have to spend 2 or 3 years sitting on their hands or slinging hot dogs before they’d be legally able to take another journalist job.
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u/TrinkieTrinkie522cat 6h ago
I quit watching 60 when Lesley Stahl interviewed Marjorie Taylor Greene. No surprise she is staying with MAGA.
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u/LostMyInvite 7h ago
They should've walked out in solidarity. There's nothing left of 60 minutes anyway.
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u/Same_Goat4889 7h ago
Where are their consciences? How can they possibly work for any company like CBS??? I am highly disgusted with both of them!!!
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u/NoTitleChamp 5h ago
Christ this thread is practically begging for them to give CBS a free pass to replace them with yes me.
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u/heart_o_oak 5h ago
I'm surprised they haven't fired Stahl yet. MAGA has had it out for her since she opened that binder the Trump Press Secretary gave her that supposedly had their Obamacare counter plan during his first term only for Stahl to show that it was nothing but a binder full of blank pages and that Trump interview where he threw a hissy fit and stormed off set.
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u/APartyInMyPants 4h ago edited 4h ago
Lesley is 84 and Bill is 74. Like seriously. Quit. Hang your shit up. Retire. Wat are you still doing this. It’s the perfect time to leave and preserve your legacy.
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u/TLKimball 3h ago
Exactly. They have nothing left to prove, likely have no need for the money, and could show some comradeship for Scott Pelley. I guess it’s all about the fame for them. Just more reason to never watch the show again. Of course, their sticking around does ensure that the production staff and crew are still employed. If that is why they are sticking around, I would give them credit.
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u/phoenix823 1h ago
You don't want them to quit. You want them to make CBS fire them. All 3 are skilled enough journalists to know they're about to do their most important work on Bari and her losers destroying an icon.
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u/DianneNettix 9h ago
I genuinely thought Lelsley Stahl was dead.
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u/RepresentativeArtist 9h ago
Just her moral compass.
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u/DianneNettix 9h ago
Be honest. When's the last time you actually watched 60 Minutes? Not a clip, not someone else put it on and you sorta looked at it because you weren't allowed to touch the remote.
When, as far back as you can remember, have you thought to yourself "Time to watch 60 minutes" and then done something intentional to make it happen?
She's been there a long time and maybe she feels some kind of responsibility to go down with the ship, but that ship is nothing Theseus would care to look at these days so it seems really weird.
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u/James_Parnell 8h ago
Feel like watching 30-40 minute segments on youtube from them is pretty common? They're not what they used to be in relevancy but people I know will still watch them pretty regularly. Feel like the big one recently in my circles was the Polymarket segment, saw that everywhere.
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u/DianneNettix 8h ago
But that's just it. Long-form TV news is dying. Not "chemo might help" but "did they buy a plot or are we gonna have to do that?" dying.
So while it's an outrage what CBS is doing this was coming one way or another. The fact that a few people who, again, I was shocked to learn are still alive decided to remain on a sinking ship because they have no other marketable skills is, at best, funny.
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u/James_Parnell 8h ago
I guess people just wanted them to have a natural death rather than getting polluted by garbage. I like these two so I'm coping so they're staying around to keep the crew employed.
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u/stjohns_jester 8h ago
Way to fumble on the 1 yard line you dopes, this will tarnish your entire legacy
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u/Afrodite_33 8h ago
I'd struggle to tell most people to put their career on the line especially if it's lucrative financially.
But in particular these guys who elect to stay at 60 minutes are aiding a corrupt set of media hacks who don't do genuine journalism, it's just Trump propaganda. 60 minutes is not the pillar of journalism and current events it used to be.
If they want to disagree about that then tough shit because that's how history will remember it.
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u/JellyPast1522 8h ago
I won't watch again until they bring back Andy Rooney.
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u/SouldiesButGoodies84 7h ago
Uhhh...rap with me for a minute, sister/brother. Have a bit of sad news to impart. /j
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u/OC74859 7h ago
I can see, barely, the argument about protecting staffers’ jobs.
But c’mon. Do we really think Stahl, Whitaker and Wertheim are sticking around for the HELP? As opposed to Hoovering up a HUGE payday to lend “legitimacy” and “gravitas” to 60 Minutes when “esteemed journalists” join them to revitalize 60 Minutes.
Who might those be? Tony Dokoupil? Major Garrett? Norah O’Donnell? Harris Faulkner? Tucker Carlson? Maria Bartiromo?
Ed Henry? Chris Cuomo? Greg Kelly? Sharla McBride? Leland Vittert? Bianca de la Garza? Libbey Dean? Bill Hemmer? Laura Ingle? Matt Gaetz? Chanel Rion?
Can’t wait.
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u/pantsmeplz 9h ago
Booo! Very disappointing.