Bill Owens Says ’60 Minutes’ Bosses Were ‘Very Concerned’ About Trump and Gaza Stories

Bill Owens, who worked as the executive producer of “60 Minutes” until his surprise resignation in April, told the Guardian that Paramount was especially concerned about stories about Donald Trump and the war between Israel and Hamas in his final weeks. “The Trump stuff they were very concerned about,” he explained.

The Friday interview was Owens’ first public remarks since he left the news organization.

After the program ran a story about state department employees who quit in response to the Biden administration’s handling of the Israeli-Hamas war, Shari Redstone reportedly asked others to communicate a message: “Well, you’re not going to do another Gaza story, are you?”

“When I said we were going to do another Gaza piece, that was like hitting a hornet’s nest,” Owens continued. “This idea that we were doing stories that [lacked] balance, on the face of it – it’s just wrong.”

Negative coverage of Trump received similar feedback. “The Trump stuff they were very concerned about,” he also said. “I remember at one point I got a phone call from someone that was trying to be an intermediary saying: ‘Do you need to mention Trump’s name that often?'”

Owens also refused to apologize for how the program edited an interview with Kamala Harris.

“I said, ‘I’m not apologizing for anything. We haven’t done anything wrong,'” he explained. “We haven’t done anything wrong. ’60 Minutes’ isn’t perfect. ’60 Minutes’ has made mistakes in the past, and we have always owned those mistakes.”

Read the interview with Bill Owens at The Guardian.

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