CBS News Shake-Up: Producer Exits Network After 46 Years
What To Know
- Veteran CBS News producer Mary Walsh is leaving the network after 46 years, citing concerns about the politicization of news coverage.
- Walsh and another recent departing producer, Alicia Hastey, both expressed worries that CBS News is shifting its editorial approach to target specific political perspectives and prioritize “heterodox” journalism.
- CBS News leadership has denied these claims, emphasizing their commitment to editorial independence and thanking Walsh for her long service.
Another CBS News staffer is taking her leave and saying the news organization has been politicized. This time, it’s producer Mary Walsh, who is ending a CBS News tenure of nearly a half-century.
“We’ve been reading a lot of goodbyes lately, and here I am, headed out the door. It’s too soon, even after 46 years,” Walsh wrote in a farewell memo to colleagues, according to The Guardian. “But maybe it’s for the best. We’ve been told to aim our reporting at a particular part of the political spectrum. Honestly, I don’t know how to do that.”
Walsh didn’t specify a part of the political spectrum, but observers have noted that the hiring of conservative commentator Bari Weiss as CBS News’ editor-in-chief appears to be an appeasement to the Trump administration, as The Guardian noted.
CBS Evening News executive producer Kim Harvey disputed Walsh’s assessment. “We wish Mary Walsh well and thank her for many years of service,” Harvey wrote in a follow-up memo, The Guardian reports. “Mary wrote in her farewell note, ‘We’ve been told to aim our reporting at a particular part of the political spectrum.’ That is simply not true. Here at the Evening News, we value our editorial independence, and CBS News leadership has never asked us to aim our reporting in any political direction.”
Walsh’s exit comes soon after that of CBS Evening News producer Alicia Hastey, who wrote in her farewell memo about “a sweeping new vision prioritizing a break from traditional broadcast norms to embrace what has been described as ‘heterodox’ journalism,” per New York Times media reporter Ben Mullin.
“Stories may instead be evaluated not just on their journalistic merit but on whether they conform to a shifting set of ideological expectations — a dynamic that pressures producers and reporters to self-censor or avoid challenging narratives that might trigger backlash or unfavorable headlines,” Hastey added.
According to her Vail Symposium bio, Walsh was a national security producer for CBS News with CBS Evening News, CBS Sunday Morning, and 60 Minutes among her credits. She began her CBS News career with a job as an assistant to the political director in Washington, D.C., and she is a recipient of five Emmy Awards and three Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Awards.
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