Status’s Oliver Darcy published a special edition of his newsletter Wednesday afternoon, revealing that CBS’s Face the Nation, hosted by Margaret Brennan, who’s become a meme on the right in the last two years, is losing both its senior executive producer and executive producer, but keeping Brennan.
It honestly comes off like rearranging the deck chairs, as conservatives have come to loathe Brennan for her combative interviews and hostile attitude toward conservatives and members of the Trump administration.
Darcy revealed that, hours earlier, showrunner “Mary Hager had some important news to disclose to her colleagues: After more than three decades at CBS News, where she has not only led the venerable Sunday public affairs program, but also served as executive editor of politics since 2022, her time at the network was coming to an end.”
Darcy added Hager had been “a 35-year veteran of the network,” with “a wealth of institutional knowledge, having helped steer its political journalism” for a generation.
But he said that wasn’t the “only major” change at the Bari Weiss-led network:
Anne Hsu, the executive producer of “Face the Nation,” is also set to depart, dealing another major blow to the Sunday public affairs show hosted by Margaret Brennan. Hsu, I’m told, is heading to Hong Kong, where she will work in the network’s bureau there.
Darcy predictably feigned disgust at CBS News's future, arguing it’ll leave the eyeball network “without two of its most senior editorial leaders at a particularly precarious moment” amid Weiss’s “turbulent” management and “upheaval.”
He conceded this will allow Weiss “to effectively reset” the Sunday show and “steer the influential program more to her liking.”
Unfortunately for viewers, Brennan seems to be safe for now.
Along with the farcical Scott Pelley, no single CBS News personality would elicit as much blowback on the right as Brennan. As long as she remains at the desk of their Sunday show, conservatives and administration officials are on solid footing to question whether they will receive a fair shake.
