Status founder, liberal media hall monitor, and virulent conservative hater Oliver Darcy took to his newsletter site Thursday night to drop over 1,600 words melting down over CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss’s remake of 60 Minutes by hiring author, filmmaker, and former New York Times columnist Nick Bilton as its new executive producer and jettisoning Tanya Simon, Sharyn Alfonsi, and Cecilia Vega.
Darcy and his ilk spent Thursday in a state of pure panic, showcasing how the liberal, elite media are dominated by godless individuals who view journalism and supposedly venerable brands such as 60 Minutes and, say, NPR as their churches and their staff as deities.
He seethed over this “bloodbath” that left CBS News “descend[ing] into chaos” and on-the-record quotes from thou-shalt-not-criticize former stalwarts such as Bill Owens and Steve Kroft.
In Owens’s case, he told Darcy “they’re killing ’60 Minutes’” that Darcy lamented was stated by a man “who does not make such comments lightly.”
Kroft – who soiled 60 Minutes with an infamous Clintons interview and a compendium of obsequious chats with Barack Obama – said the show’s been “executed by the President of the United States” after having “[made] threats against ’60 Minutes’ and how he wanted it gone.”
With sanctimonious, skin-crawling-levels of ego, Kroft went on to tell him “I don’t know” if the show “could…be resurrected one day,” but he does know “the show as people have known it for 50 years is dead.”
Bilton hasn’t been able to put pen to paper (or maybe even been set up with a work phone and email), and the ruling class has already proclaimed 60 Minutes will be MAGA TV.
“Inside the halls of the newsmagazine on Manhattan’s 57th Street, the mood was grim. Heartbroken staffers said goodbye to colleagues and worried openly about the future of a television institution. ‘It’s like a funeral in here,’ an insider told Status. ‘People are devastated,’” Darcy declared.
What is this? 2016 election night?
Someone send CBS News liberals some beanbag chairs and coloring books.
Darcy argued showrunner Tanya Simon – daughter of the late, famous 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon – had raked in Emmys and Polk Awards and “led the show to new heights” over the past season.
Of course, Darcy’s idea of superb journalism includes a theme of spewing as much hatred at Trump as possible with stories such as the infamous Alfonsi hatchet job about the Salvadoran prison, Vega’s on anti-Israel former U.S. diplomats, and celebrating far-left Catholic Cardinals trashing Trump.
Relaying how Simon, Alfonsi, and then the show’s “first Latina” in Vega were all canned, Darcy said “anxious staffers watched throughout the day as Simon and [executive editor Draggan] Mihailovich packed up their offices” with “tears flow[ing] openly” and “[s]taffers exchang[ing] texts expressing not only heartbreak, but genuine anger at Weiss and Ellison for upending a program they treasure.”
Of course, there was no acknowledgement that sending I-am-Spartacus emails to colleagues, ripping the people who employ you usually doesn’t end well.
Instead, Darcy served up comically stereotypical quotes about anonymous CBS journalists saying they’re being “gutted” and “violated” with the show unable “to function”:
“They’re gutting us,” one “60 Minutes” staffer told Status. “It’s over. I don’t see how ‘60’ will be able to function after this.”
“Goodnight and good luck, motherfuckers,” the staffer added.
“Everyone—100% thought Tanya and Draggan did exemplary jobs,” another senior “60 Minutes” staffer told Status. “It hurts. We feel violated.”
He shared longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl tried to rally the troops, “[b]ut her remarks, I’m told, failed to lift spirits” of those “deflated and discouraged[.]”
Additionally, he predicted it’s possible “other staffers and correspondents decide to leave on their own accord.”
“The program will carry the name into the future. The iconic ticking clock will also remain. But the show’s DNA is being warped,” he huffed.
Along with decreeing these changes are Trump’s doing on, at a minimum, an implicit level, he panned Bilton’s hire and because he’s “a technology journalist” with “no television news or managerial experience.”
For good measure, Darcy kicked dirt on Bilton’s welcome message, saying his “note did not exactly win anyone over[.]” What petulance.
Moving briefly to Vega, her farewell message came off like MS NOW host Lawrence O’Donnell had penned it for a West Wing revival, dripping with main character energy and “fear[ing] what comes next for and the future of the legendary broadcast” with rampant “censorship” that’s “dangerous for democracy” (click “expand”):
In recent months, my producing teams and I have experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories. Reporting teams have held back on submitting story pitches about important news topics out of fear of the internal repercussions.
Let’s call this what it is: censorship, both imposed and self-driven. It is dangerous for the show and dangerous for democracy.
I held the line and refused to incorporate suggestions that offend the conscience, a phrase I borrow from a colleague who has also fought to keep questionable editorial suggestions away from the facts.
She later closed by plugging her DEI status and leveled a warning to Weiss: “Today I lost an amazing job. But I still have my integrity. To my former colleagues, continue to hold the line.”
She also made reference to a “personal red line,” which was amusing to read considering her long history of rampant liberal bias and lobbing weapons-grade hate at Trump supporters on election night 2024.
