CBS News chief to leave as tension persists over Paramount’s trump fight

Wendy McMahon is the network’s second recent high-profile departure.

CBS News Chief Executive Wendy McMahon is exiting the company. Photo: Michele Crowe/CBS via Getty Images

CBS News Chief Executive Wendy McMahon is exiting the company, the latest high-ranking departure from a network embroiled in a lawsuit with President Trump over how a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris was edited.

Parent company Paramount Global is working to settle President Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit against CBS News, a resolution the company’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, sees as necessary to complete her merger with Skydance Media. Redstone has become an increasingly vocal critic of CBS News.

Paramount Global Co-CEO and CBS Chief George Cheeks announced McMahon’s departure to Paramount’s board on Sunday, people with knowledge of the meeting said.

In a memo to staff, McMahon said, “the past few months have been challenging. It’s become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward.” No successor for McMahon was named. CBS News president Tom Cibrowski will now report directly to Cheeks. An ABC News veteran, Cibrowski joined CBS in January.

A recent point of tension between McMahon and the leadership of CBS parent Paramount Global was her unwillingness to issue an apology to President Trump as part of any potential settlement of the lawsuit, people familiar with her thinking said.

The suit alleges the network deceitfully edited a “60 Minutes” interview with Harris, then the Democratic presidential candidate, to make her sound better. The network has said it was neither doctored nor deceitful.

People close to the situation said the CBS board had grown concerned that reaching a settlement with Trump would become more difficult if McMahon stayed in her present role.

CBS and Trump representatives have had meetings with a mediator in recent weeks to try to resolve the suit, but it couldn’t be learned if or when a deal might be reached. Such a settlement is strongly opposed by CBS News staffers and executives.

A resolution of the suit could help Paramount get closer to closing the merger with Skydance. The deal also requires approval from the Federal Communications Commission, led by Trump-appointed Chairman Brendan Carr.

McMahon has clashed with Redstone over the network’s coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas. Redstone has weighed in on the news division’s coverage, saying some stories have had an anti-Israel bias.

Bill Owens, executive producer of “60 Minutes,” resigned last month, saying he had lost editorial independence.

Redstone has had concerns in general about CBS beyond its Middle East coverage. She played a role in the appointment of veteran news producer and former CBS News President Susan Zirinsky last January as executive editor in charge of vetting stories and checking for bias, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Redstone’s CBS News critiques spilt into public view last fall when she defended CBS anchor Tony Dokoupil for a challenging interview with author Ta-Nehisi Coates about his book “The Message,” which was critical of Israel. She publicly defended the anchor after backlash to his aggressive questioning of Coates, and reached out privately to offer him support, the Journal reported at the time.

CBS News, like its rivals, is contending with continued cord cutting that has eroded its audience. A revamp of the “CBS Evening News’ earlier this year has fallen flat in the ratings.

McMahon also oversees another unit of CBS that is embroiled in a legal fight with Sony Pictures over a lucrative distribution deal for the game shows “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy.”

The Wall Street Journal