Scandal-Rocked CBS News Brings in Veteran Executive To Right Ship as Legal Settlement Looms With Trump Over ‘Selectively Edited’ Harris Interview
CBS News’ leadership team, composed of local news executives, had careened from one news controversy to another.
Embattled CBS News chief Wendy McMahon is bringing in an experienced network news executive from ABC to restore order as CBS News reels from months of editorial scandals and seeks desperately to avoid future embarrassments.
Tom Cibrowski, the general manager of ABC’s San Francisco station, KGO, who spent 25 years at ABC News, has been named president and executive editor of CBS News, reporting to Ms. McMahon. Variety first reported the news.
Mr. Cibrowski, who would have known Ms. McMahon when she worked for ABC’s local station group prior to assuming her CBS role, spent many years as a producer and executive at “Good Morning America,” and earlier in his career traveled widely as a producer to big stories around the world. This is the kind of experience absent from Ms. McMahon’s previous leadership team, which was composed of local news executives and was unable to handle complex editorial issues inherent in managing a network news organization, even one as depleted and diminished as CBS News.
“Tom brings a clear vision, fresh perspective and competitive edge that will serve us well here at CBS News,” Ms. McMahon said in a statement. “From bringing GMA to #1 to his vast international experience, I have no doubt he will lead CBS News to new heights. He will be instrumental to our mission to elevate the quality of our news coverage and strengthen our commitment to excellence.”
CBS News did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication. The storied news division has been in steady decline for the last 30 years, though it has persistently defied predictions that it will be closed entirely. These dire predictions have returned as CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global, is preparing to be acquired by Skydance, the Hollywood studio owned by the son of the billionaire Larry Ellison. The merger is expected to lead to massive layoffs at CBS.
The decision to bring on Mr. Cibrowksi appears to be an attempt by Ms. McMahon to save her own job and steady the ship of CBS News, which has been rocked by a “news distortion” investigation by the FCC, and a $20 billion lawsuit from President Trump over selective editing of Vice President Harris’ interview with “60 Minutes” that aired on October 7.
All of that comes as Paramount Global is seeking approval from the Trump Administration to be acquired by Skydance.
Speaking of Ms. McMahon in a recent episode of his Puck podcast, the well-connected Hollywood journalist Matt Belloni said, “she’ll be gone soon.”
Mr. Cibrowski is expected to take over the responsibilities that were managed by the former head of CBS News’ newsgathering, Adrianne Roark, during her brief seven-month run that ended last week when she announced she was returning to local news as an executive at Tegna.
Questions had started swirling about Ms. Roark’s job security after she mishandled the staff uproar surrounding morning host Tony Dokoupil’s interview with T’Nehesi Coates, the staunchly anti-Israel author best known for his advocacy of reparations being paid to Black people, a case he argued in a widely-read article for the far left Atlantic magazine.
Mr. Dokoupil, a convert to Judaism with children who live in Israel with his ex-wife (he is now married to the anti-Trump MSNBC personality Katy Tur), interviewed Mr. Coates on September 30 and confronted the author about some of the virulently anti-Israel rhetoric in his new, bestselling book and said some of it sounded like it would be “in the backpack of an extremist.” Specifically, he asked why Mr. Coates did not mention the daily threats Israel faces or the first or second intifada while criticizing the Jewish state.
Internal complaints from CBS News’ anti-Israel staff eventually made their way up to the network’s top executives, who chose to address the interview on the anniversary of October 7. During a staff meeting that day, a recording of which was leaked to the Free Press, Ms. Roark, a local TV news lifer who had no experience in network or national news coverage, seemed to rigidly read from pre-written remarks about how covering such anniversaries “requires empathy, respect, and a commitment to truth.”
She then read from the CBS News handbook, invoked the legendary Walter Cronkite, and said that the network will “still ask tough questions” and “hold people accountable,” but that sometimes “we fail our audiences and each other.”
“We’re at a tipping point. Many of you have reached out to express concerns about recent reporting. Specifically about the ‘CBS Mornings’ Coates interview last week as well as comments made coming out of some of our correspondents’ reporting,” Ms. Roark said before she threw Mr. Dokoupil under the bus and claimed his interview did not meet CBS News’ editorial standards.
Ms. McMahon had elevated Ms. Roark and Jennifer Mitchell to top positions at the network in August, cobbling together a leadership team with executives with no experience in a national newsroom. The three women had spent their careers in local news jobs — Ms. McMahon got her start doing marketing for a local TV station in Georgia — and were unfamiliar with the treachery and snares endemic to network television news.
The decision to elevate Ms. Roark raised eyebrows at the time, as it came after the forced departure of a TV news veteran and then-president of CBS News, Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, in July 2024. Ms. Matthews, who’d been at CBS News for decades, lasted less than a year as president, and was dogged by allegations of sidelining white journalists and unfair hiring practices.
But following Ms. Ciprian-Matthews’ ouster, Ms. McMahon and her fellow local news veterans, Ms. Roark and Ms. Mitchell, were themselves dogged by controversy after controversy, most involving allegations of liberal and anti-Israel bias and giving too much leeway to the producers of “60 Minutes,” a managerial issue that has dogged CBS News for decades.
A now-notorious “60 Minutes” interview from October with Vice President Harris is now the subject of a $20 billion lawsuit from President Trump and an official “news distortion” investigation by the FCC. “60 Minutes” was exposed as having made an edit to the taped interview, removing the top of the vice president’s answer to a question about Prime Minister Netanyahu, when she made “word salad,” thereby making her sound coherent.
“60 Minutes” is also under fire for an anti-Israel segment that aired in early January on State Department rank and file opposition to the U.S. role in the Israeli-Hamas war. The American Jewish Committee said the report was “shockingly one-sided, lacked factual accuracy, and relied heavily on misguided information.”
The AJC further noted that the segment did not mention why the war was started in the first place and that it reported “unverified civilian casualties” in Gaza and “repeated the claim that Israel is blocking aid” even though such claims have been refuted. Meanwhile, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, asked why there was no mention of the hostages being held by Hamas.
Then, this past Sunday, the CBS News personality, Margaret Brennan, while attacking Vice President Vance during an interview with Secretary Rubio, made a bizarre effort to blame the Holocaust on “weaponized free speech.” Despite a national outcry, she has not apologized. Ms. Brennan was also fiercely criticized for “fact checking” Mr. Vance during the vice presidential debate despite CBS agreeing not to fact-check the candidates.
Looming over everything at CBS News are ongoing settlement negotiations between Paramount, CBS’ parent company, and Mr. Trump’s attorneys. Paramount has decided to explore settling the lawsuit, over the objections of Ms. McMahon and the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens. According to the Wall Street Journal, Paramount wants to settle the lawsuit and bury any disagreements with Mr. Trump so the Skydance acquisition can go forward.
According to multiple news reports this week, CBS News and Mr. Trump’s team are looking for a mediator to handle settlement talks. Speaking Wednesday during the first Cabinet meeting of his second term, Mr. Trump confirmed the settlement conversations and said he expected CBS to pay “a lot”, considering that the Harris interview, he said, almost cost him the election.
Ms. McMahon and Mr. Owens, have reportedly been outspoken critics of a settlement. Mr. Owens reportedly told staff members he would not apologize for the edits made to Ms. Harris’ interview.
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