Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim say they will stay on 60 Minutes

The future of the correspondents' role had been in doubt after the ouster of EP Tanya Simon and the hiring of outsider Nick Bilton.

They’re staying. Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim said in a memo Friday that they would remain at “60 Minutes,” potentially calming the chaotic situation that has festered at the CBS News program since the ouster of top producers and three of the program’s correspondents, including executive producer Tanya Simon, executive editor Draggan Mihailovich, […]

Bill Whitaker, Lesley Stahl and Jon Wertheim met on Wednesday for more than an hour amid growing turmoil at CBS News following Pelley's ouster.

Paramount’s “Press Express” page promoting 60 Minutes still lists all eight correspondents from the 2025–2026 season, the program’s 58th. (Perhaps they fired the person responsible for keeping the cast page up to date.) In the order they appear on Paramount’s listing: Lesley Stahl Scott Pelley — fired today Bill Whitaker Anderson Cooper — left on his own after 20 years Sharyn Alfonsi — fired last week L. Jon Wertheim Cecilia Vega — fired last week Norah O’Donnell A big part of the brand for 60 Minutes is that the show doesn’t change. Someone who last saw it 40 years ago would instantly recognize it today. There’s no silly fucking theme song. There’s no glossy set. There’s a ticking stopwatch, a logotype set in Microgramma/Eurostile, and correspondents sit against a black background. And correspondents measure their tenure not by years but by decades. Of the original hosts, Harry Reasoner was there for 23 years (and left the cast only upon his death at 68 in 1991), Dan Rather was there for 38 years, Mike Wallace for 40, and Morley Safer for 48. 48 years! Of the current hosts, Lesley Stahl has been there since 1991. I graduated high school that year. In just six months since David Ellison bought CBS and installed Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News, they’ve fired or lost half their on-air talent, and of the four who remain, Wertheim and O’Donnell are only part-time (O’Donnell’s title is “CBS News senior correspondent”, not “60 Minutes correspondent”), Whitaker is 74 years old, and Stahl is 84. Behind the cameras, longtime executive producer Bill Owens resigned in protest of corporate interference a year ago, in the cowardly run-up to Ellison’s acquisition of CBS. Last week Weiss fired Owens’s successor, Tanya Simon, who had been with the program for 30 years, replacing her with Nick Bilton, who not only had never worked at 60 Minutes, but has never worked in TV news period. Weiss also fired executive editor Draggan Mihailovich, who’d been at the show for 28 years. It seems untenable for Stahl or Whitaker to remain on the show. Pelley called it what it was in Bilton’s ham-fisted staff meeting Monday: the murder of the institution.  ★ 

"I think Bill is next," said a source close to the network. "Lesley is keeping quiet, but I wouldn't be surprised if she left."

The future of “60 Minutes” could well hinge on two people with deep ties to CBS News’ past. Many staffers and producers at the beleaguered newsmagazine are left wondering whether Lesley Stahl and Bill Whitaker, two CBS News veterans who have been with the news division now controlled by Paramount Skydance since 1971 and 1984, […]