Michael Gavshon, a longtime 60 Minutes producer, is reportedly ending his time at CBS News.
The New York Post reported on Friday that Gavshon, who worked out of CBS News’ London bureau, has resigned from the network.
“Thirty-four of my forty-one years at CBS News have been at 60 Minutes,” Gavshon wrote in a memo to colleagues, which the Post obtained. “The old chestnut, I have stood on the shoulders of giants, couldn’t be more true.”
The Status newsletter reported in January (according to the Post) that Gavshon was exasperated after CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss subjected a 60 Minutes segment — an Anderson Cooper report about a White House policy of accepting South African refugees President Donald Trump described as victims of a white genocide — to unusual editorial feedback.
That segment finally aired in late February, days after Cooper declined to renew his 60 Minutes contract.
Gavshon was also reported to be upset by CBS News leadership’s decision to fire executive producer Tanya Simon, correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, executive editor Draggan Mihailovich, and others in May.
And earlier this month, former 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley lost his job at the newsmagazine after accusing Weiss of “murdering” the show.
Lately, many critics from within CBS News and without have criticized both Weiss and David Ellison, the Trump ally now leading corporate parent Paramount Skydance. Alfonsi, Vega, and Pelley all have complained about CBS News leadership exerting undue influence on or trying to add political bias into 60 Minutes reporting.
“You have three respected 60 Minutes journalists saying that Bari or her lieutenants have tried to insert misstatements in their stories,” Betsy West, former senior vice president of CBS News, told Variety recently. “It feels like she and the people she reports to are trying to check the independence of 60 Minutes and ultimately undermine the free press that undergirds our democracy.”
And former 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft told Variety Ellis and Weiss haven’t shown a desire to stand up to Trump and his threats against 60 Minutes. The magazine notes that Paramount Skydance is seeking FCC approval for its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.