Wendy McMahon is out as head of CBS News and Stations
Cites loss of editorial independence after 60 Minutes lawsuit
Paramount Global’s CBS News lost its leader Monday as Wendy McMahon was essentially fired as head of the CBS News and Stations group.
On Saturday, Paramount co-CEO George Cheeks demanded her resignation from CBS News after she reportedly apologized to staff for how CBS was handling the 60 Minutes fiasco. The Trump Administration is suing the network for an edited interview with Kamala Harris. Paramount is looking to settle with the administration and appease them with these executive shakeups. Paramount is trying to sell its company to Skydance, which still needs approval from federal regulators. McMahon agreed to step down from her position on Monday.
McMahon not only managed CBS News but also its station group, which includes CBS Chicago (WBBM-TV) and syndicator CBS Media Ventures.
CBS News president Tom Cibrowski and CBS stations president Jennifer Mitchell will now report to Cheeks.
This is the most recent high-profile departure from CBS. Earlier, 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens departed, citing corporate interference. Last year, CBS News President Adrienne Roark departed for a job with station group Tegna.
McMahon was hired away from the ABC-owned station group in 2021 by CBS News and Stations and was paired with Neeraj Khemlani to run the combined divisions. She took on the job herself after his departure two years ago. Even though CBS remains the top-rated entertainment network, they have struggled in news – finishing behind its ABC and NBC broadcast counterparts. Its low-rated Evening News saw Norah O’Donnell depart last September and was replaced with a co-anchoring team of Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson – the first since the ill-fated pairing of Dan Rather and Connie Chung in the mid-1990s.
CBS’ local stations also continued to struggle with local news during her tenure in the nation’s largest markets as the group rolled out a bland, uniform graphics look across all of its outlets, including using the same five-note music bed, effectively stripping away the legendary Dick Mark theme CBS Chicago has used off and on for decades – cutting the last tie CBS Chicago had to the legendary team of Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson, who dominated the local news ratings in the early 1980s.
Since McMahon took over, news ratings at CBS Chicago remain low as the station hired former WGN-TV news director Jennifer Lyons to right the ship and lost much of its goodwill build up after its critically-praised investigation regarding botched Chicago Police raids, becoming the first local station to show Anjanette Young being a victim of such treatment. Perhaps to extend an olive branch, CBS Chicago hired Lori Lightfoot to provide commentary at the Democratic National Convention in town last summer, as she was a frequent critic of the station when she was Mayor.
Other miscues included the rebranding of KCBS-TV as “KCAL News” and a former anchor suing its Detroit station for discrimination, as its relaunch has been a disaster.
McMahon had better success at CBS Media Ventures, with the successful launch of game shows FlipSide with Jaleel White and The Perfect Line with Deborah Norville, which is cleared in 95 percent of the country for this fall. However, CBS Media Ventures became embroiled in a lawsuit with Sony over profits regarding Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy amid other allegations, and almost lost the rights to distribute the show twice. The legal case is certain to head to trial.
This site compared the follies of CBS last year to the Chicago White Sox, who seem to share the same terrible management traits. The South Siders lost a record-breaking 121 games last year, and off to a terrible start again this year.
Despite her so-so performance, the departure of McMahon is having an impact on several levels. As the FCC continues to stall its approval of its merger with Skydance, one could wonder if the Trump Administration is trying to extract conditions for the deal to go through – including more favorable news coverage as the President is known to hate the news media. In terms of “corporate interference”, that’s coming from Paramount Global controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, who appears to have more say in how the news division is run than she did in the past, as she recently grew critical of how McMahon was managing the news division as she is trying to get the Skydance deal closed – which is no guarantee as Trump could pursue even more legal action, delaying any deal further. Paramount earlier removed its DEI policies, which the administration abhors.
In all, it sets a dangerous precedent if well-paid network executives now have the power to kill stories that don’t show the Trump Administration in the best light. And it doesn’t stop there – future investigative reporting like we saw in 2019 at CBS Chicago could be spiked by corporate, say if Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara – who often appears on Chicago’s local newscasts, complains to the FCC and the Trump Administration about those botched police raids – something their reporting brought to light. It’s a slippery slope and threatens the hallmark of the Fifth Estate – holding politicians and other leaders accountable.