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Cabernet is the most popular red wine in the U.S. Can it endure climate change?

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Cabernet is the most popular red wine in the U.S. Can it endure climate change?

Late-summer heat waves are threatening Napa Valley’s famed cabernet grapes, which produce some of the United States’ most expensive wines. To survive in a hotter climate, winemakers are realizing they’ll need to adapt.

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In California’s Napa Valley, cabernet sauvignon is king.

The bold red wine has made the region world famous, with some bottles retailing at hundreds of dollars. But increasingly severe heat waves are taking a toll on the grape variety, especially in late summer during ripening. As temperatures keep rising, the wine industry is slowly confronting a future where Napa may not be the prime cabernet region it once was.

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In the face of climate change, wineries around the world are innovating. New technology is being installed to keep the grapes cool during heat spells. A handful of wineries are going a step further. They’re experimenting with new grapes, ripping out high-value cabernet vines to plant varieties from hotter climates.

The goal is to find heat-tolerant grapes that blend well with cabernet, potentially making up for the flavors that cabernet could lack when temperatures get even hotter. While many bottles labeled cabernet are already blended with other grapes in small amounts, winemakers may need more flexibility in the future.

“We know we have to adapt,” says Avery Heelan, a winemaker at Larkmead Vineyards in Calistoga, Calif. “We can’t just pretend that it’s going to go away, because all we see is each year it’s getting more and more extreme.”

Still, blending with other grapes comes with risks. For a U.S. wine to be labeled cabernet, a bottle must contain 75% cabernet grapes or more. Any less, and it’s considered a red blend. Blends typically don’t command the same prices on store shelves as cabernet, especially since consumers are accustomed to picking U.S. wines by the name of the grape. Moving away from cabernet would be a major financial gamble for Napa’s multibillion-dollar wine industry.

“It is a big shift,” says Elisabeth Forrestel, an assistant professor of viticulture and enology at the University of California, Davis. “Without the market changing or demands changing, you can’t convince someone to grow something that doesn’t sell or doesn’t garner the same price.”

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The photo on the right shows Jacob Vito crushing cabernet sauvignon grapes. The grapes are in plastic zip-close bags, and Vito is crushing the grapes with his hands, which are in purple gloves. The photo on the left shows Vito pouring crushed grapes from a plastic bag into plastic centrifuge tubes.

University of California, Davis research assistant Jacob Vito crushes cabernet sauvignon grapes from Napa Valley to analyze their chemical compounds. The lab is studying how heat is affecting the grapes.

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Charbono, anyone?

Some grapes growing at Larkmead Vineyards aren’t ones that many American wine drinkers would recognize. Long rows of vines are labeled: touriga nacional, aglianico, charbono and tempranillo.

“There’s not a huge market for a lot of these varieties,” says Heelan, walking among the vines on a hot summer afternoon. “We’re really choosing them not from popularity, but for their qualities.”

Established more than a century ago, the winery is known for its bottles of cabernet sauvignon. These lesser-known grapes were planted only a few years ago, part of a research vineyard that took the place of cabernet vines.

“Which most people would probably think is a little crazy, considering it’s 3 acres of perfect cabernet land,” Heelan says. “But certainly with the climate and how dramatically it’s changed over even the last 10 years, we really have to start adjusting.”

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The photo on the right shows winemaker Avery Heelan of Larkmead Vineyards in Napa Valley. She's wearing blue jeans and a black sleeveless top, and she's standing between two rows of grapevines. The photo on the left shows three rows of grapevines at Larkmead. A sign on a stake at the end of the middle row labels the row as charbono grapes.

Winemaker Avery Heelan is growing several rare grape varieties at Larkmead Vineyards in Napa Valley, in the hope that they’ll blend well with cabernet grapes as temperatures get hotter.

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The vineyard is already at the hotter northern end of Napa Valley, but the extreme heat in recent years has been a wake-up call. A late-summer heat wave in 2022 hit temperatures just under 120 degrees at the vineyard, she says.

“When it gets that hot, the vines, they’re done,” she says. “They’re going to go dormant, and when that happens, they’re not ripening anymore.”

In extreme heat, cabernet grapes can lose their rich color. They also dehydrate, wrinkling like raisins, which produces wines that are sweeter and more alcoholic. Heelan says the grapes that the vineyard is testing could provide an added boost of color or acidity to cabernet, helping balance out the wine when temperatures take their toll.

The experiment has its cost. In addition to the lost revenue from removing cabernet, grapevines take up to five years to produce their first crop, plus several more years for the wines to ferment. Heelan says only then will they start to see how the new grapes are performing. But the goal is to prepare the winery for the future, knowing that heat will likely get worse.

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“Honestly, the more we experiment and learn about how to adapt, I think the wines are just getting better and better,” she says.

This photo shows a close-up of red wine pouring into a wine glass.

In hotter temperatures, cabernet grapes lose their rich red color and produce sweeter, more alcoholic wines.

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Where cabernet is king

Farther south, Shafer Vineyards sits in the heart of Stags Leap, a Napa wine region that’s known for high-end cabernets. Winemaker Elias Fernandez says the grapes benefit from a cool evening breeze that blows in from San Francisco Bay.

This summer, heat has already been a problem. July was the hottest July on record in California. Fernandez points to a grape cluster where small green grapes are nestled among larger purple ones.

“This is effects of the heat,” he says. “It’s not maturing, so this is where you lose some fruit.”

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The photo on the right shows winemaker Elias Fernandez of Shafer Vineyards in Napa Valley. He's wearing blue jeans, a mint green polo shirt and a black insulated vest. Rows of grapevines stand in the background. The photo on the left shows a close-up of dark wine grapes growing on a vine.

Winemaker Elias Fernandez is installing new technology at Shafer Vineyards in Napa Valley to combat heat waves.

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The damage isn’t too widespread this year, unlike in 2022. But with summers getting more intense, Fernandez says the winery is looking at technology to help the cabernet vines. They’re currently installing misters, which spray water into the air to cool the temperature.

“It’s a constant mist,” he says. “How many of you have been to a party where they have misters? Doesn’t that feel good? Well, that’s what the vines are feeling.”

Still, using extra water is a challenge in drought-prone California, he says. Plus, the water droplets can concentrate the light on the grapes and burn them, so misters must be run until the sun sets to keep the droplets from collecting. But Fernandez says he’s hoping the misting will keep the cabernet vines producing at the highest level.

“I think the first thing we’ll be doing is mitigation, hoping to keep it as the true varietal of Napa Valley,” he says. “That’s what we’re trying to do — is buy time and see what happens with this whole thing.”

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For now, he’s not considering planting other grape varieties. With wines that are priced at $100 and up, cabernet is central to their business.

“For me, it’s hard to think that people are just going to throw cabernet out the door and plant something else,” he says. “I really do. It’s the king of the wines of the world.”

This photo shows rows of grapevines, with trees in the background.

To keep producing high-quality cabernets, Napa Valley winemakers may need to blend them with other grapes to balance out the effects of heat. But wines labeled as blends, instead of cabernet, often sell at lower prices.

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Wine regions are shifting

This photo shows Elisabeth Forrestel, an assistant professor of viticulture and enology at the University of California, Davis. She's wearing a black shirt with an unbuttoned light blue shirt layered on top of it. She's also wearing glasses and has her dark hair tied back. Laboratory equipment is in the background.

Professor Elisabeth Forrestel is studying how Napa’s wine regions are shifting with climate change.

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Elisabeth Forrestel is one person trying to understand the big swings in the temperature. In her lab at UC Davis, her research team is smashing Napa Valley grapes inside plastic bags. They’ll be analyzed at the molecular level to see how they change during the summer.

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Forrestel’s lab is gathering wine grapes from Napa Valley throughout the growing season, along with detailed temperature data, to see how the most crucial compounds for wine are affected by heat. Studies show the average temperature during the last 45 days of the growing season in Napa — when grapes ripen— has already warmed almost 3 degrees Fahrenheit from 1958 to 2016. But it’s the intense heat waves that do the most damage to molecules that produce a wine’s color and aroma.

“When you have these extreme heat events, you can have a lot of impact on the development of that flavor profile,” she says. “If it was just an average change, it would be a lot easier to manage.”

Forrestel is working on updating a central guide for winemaking, known as the Winkler Index. Developed in the 1940s, it shows the ideal locations to grow different varieties of wine grapes, based on how much heat they receive. Napa Valley was originally indexed for cabernet sauvignon, but this could shift as the climate gets hotter.

With cabernet being the world’s most widely grown wine grape, cabernet vines are resilient to different temperatures, Forrestel says. It’s a question of whether Napa winemakers may need new strategies to keep it producing at such a high-quality level. Since grapevines last 50 years or more, winemakers are faced with making planting decisions today that will need to withstand a hotter future.

“Some of the paradigms in what you would plant need to shift,” she says. “People need to have different approaches so there can be more resilience and you can have more options.”

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This photo shows UC Davis research associate Martina Galeano preparing grape samples. While wearing purple gloves, she pours liquid from a zip-close plastic bag into a plastic centrifuge tube.

UC Davis research associate Martina Galeano prepares grape samples. Wine grapes need heat for ripening, but too much heat can break down some of the crucial compounds for wine flavor and color.

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Would you pay the same for a blend?

Blending cabernet with other red grapes could be one strategy. But since U.S. regulations require any bottle labeled cabernet to contain 75% cabernet, at some point wineries may be looking at changing their labels to say “red blend.”

“We have a perception that a blend is not as high quality as getting that high-quality cabernet, and they’re not on the same price point, so it is a big shift,” Forrestel says.

The challenge is particular to U.S. winemakers, since many other countries label their wines by region, instead of grape. The famed red wines from Bordeaux in France are already a mix of six grapes, including cabernet, so winemakers have more flexibility. Winemakers there have also struggled with heat, so French authorities recently approved four more red-grape varieties for blending. Since the wines are labeled with Bordeaux, wine drinkers may not even notice the shift.

Wines in the U.S. are generally labeled by the grape variety, a system that was promoted when the domestic wine industry was growing in prominence decades ago. In an effort to compete with wines from Europe, some thought focusing on the grape variety would demystify wines for consumers and show the quality of American wines.

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Now, that system may work against them. Cabernet sauvignon is the most popular red wine in the U.S., according to NielsenIQ. So Forrestel says consumers are also part of the solution by creating demand for wines that are better suited for a hotter climate.

“Be open,” she says. “Because I think it’s really easy to walk in and buy what you’re used to. And also, trust what you like and not what you’re told to like.”

Lifestyle

How having zero points in tennis — or ‘love’ — came to sound so sweet

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How having zero points in tennis — or ‘love’ — came to sound so sweet

The scoreboard shows the results of the women’s singles final match between Iga Swiatek of Poland and Amanda Anisimova of the U.S. at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025.

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Fifteen points in tennis? Nice. Thirty, 40 — even better. Advantage — that sounds good. “Love” — that also must be great, right? Well, not quite.

As the French Open rolls on and Serena Williams has announced her return to the sport, maybe you’ve been paying a little more attention to tennis. The sport’s scoring system is notably distinct, and can sometimes be hard to grasp for newcomers. But even tennis aficionados might not know why, or how, “love” became the unmistakable callout for zero points. For this installment of NPR’s Word of the Week, we’re exploring how a word that signifies trailing behind got such a sweet name.

“Love” comes from the heart — or an egg?

It’s hard to pinpoint when the first tennis ball went over the net. Tennis is a derivative of lots of other sports, such as “jeu de paume,” a handball game played in France, said JT Buzanga, the collections manager at the International Tennis Hall of Fame museum.

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But tennis became a patented, official sport in 1874, said Steve Flink, a journalist whose tennis coverage got him inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. It has retained its unique, mysterious scoring system ever since.

“By and large, the original system has held up almost entirely,” Flink said.

The use of “love” goes back to the late 18th century, said Jesse Sheidlower, a lexicographer. But it was used earlier than that in card games such as whist and bridge. Before the term made its way to tennis, the sport favored plain old “nothing,” or “nil,” he said.

Why love in the first place, though? Historians don’t really know for sure, but there are a few theories.

The French could have something to do with it. Some historians believe “love” derives from “l’oeuf,” which means “the egg” in French. Because eggs are shaped like zeros, terms such as “goose egg” and “duck’s egg” have been used in other contexts to mean zero, Sheidlower said.

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It’s also possible English speakers mispronounced l’oeuf as “love.” But Sheidlower isn’t convinced that’s the answer.

“It’s the French equivalent of an English expression. But since that expression doesn’t appear in French, the French word wouldn’t have been used,” he said.

To be sure, France has had a lot of influence on tennis culture, Buzanga said. For example, “deuce” or a game tied at 40 points, comes from the French word for “two”: “deux.” But he prefers another prominent theory: that “love” comes from the idiom “for the love of the game.” Even if a player hasn’t scored, it doesn’t matter, because their heart is in it. It’s the theory Sheidlower said is the most plausible, because the idiom was used by the English before tennis was popularized.

Another variation of the “love of the game” theory is that the word could have come from the Dutch “lof,” or “honor” — or the Latin “amare,” meaning “to love,” Flink said.

But if tennis’ “love” doesn’t come from a French word, the theory at least has a French sensibility.

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“I think the ‘for the love of the game’ is kind of romantic,” Buzanga said.

“Love” probably isn’t going anywhere

Tennis used to be a sport of leisure. The style of play has changed a lot over the years; players are more athletic and competitive, for instance, Flink said. But the rules of the sport are more steadfast, he said.

“There’s this incredible, enduring respect for tradition in tennis,” he said. “Changes are not made easily.”

There has been one major change in modern history: the tie-break. Matches can go on and on because players have to score two consecutive points to break a deuce, or by two games to break a tied set. But the onset of television meant matches would have to get shorter if the sport wanted to capture a larger audience, Flink said.

Change even came for “love.” An alternative sprouted up in the 1970s, and is still used today: “bagel,” named for its zero shape, Sheidlower said. Novices may say “zero,” and insiders will understand what they mean, but they “will needle them about it,” Flink said.

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But “love” still prevails.

“People kind of like it,” Flink said. “It’s different. Why say zero when you can say love?”

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With Highway 1 open, Big Sur braces for its busiest summer in years

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With Highway 1 open, Big Sur braces for its busiest summer in years

On a 75-mile cliff-hugging stretch of highway in California, traffic is way up, despite soaring gas prices. And locals expect the busiest summer in years.

The road is Highway 1 in Big Sur, which reopened in January after three years of repair and reconstruction following a pair of landslides. Drivers can once again embark on the state’s most famous road trip, covering the 100 miles between Cambria to the south and Carmel to the north without leaving the two-lane coastal highway. And they’re heading out in big numbers.

Caltrans estimates that as of May, Big Sur restaurant and retailer guest counts are up 40% from last year, and that northbound traffic at Ragged Point, the southern gateway to Big Sur, has risen 900% year-over-year.

People pose for photos near Bixby Bridge. Monterey County’s Board of Supervisors voted to explore a 12-month ban on parking around the bridge.

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Safety cones prevent parking along Coast Road near the Bixby Bridge.

Safety cones prevent parking along Coast Road near the Bixby Bridge.

“Take your time,” said Kirk Gafill, co-owner of the popular Nepenthe restaurant and president of the Big Sur Chamber of Commerce, offering advice to travelers. “You’re going to be sharing the road with a number of people.”

As travelers rediscover the road, the cost of driving has been shooting skyward. California’s average gas price ($6.11 per gallon as of May 26) is up 26% from the year before. In early April, rates hit $9.99 at the isolated gas station in the Big Sur community of Gorda.

For spring and summer travelers, these numbers would seem to pose a stark question: Stay home and save money, or head for the coast because the road is finally open and it’s still cheaper than flying?

So far, the latter answer is winning big.

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Fog lingers off the coast of Highway 1.

Fog lingers off the coast of Highway 1.

“We are definitely seeing a huge uptick in our reservations,” said Megan Handy, assistant general manager at the upscale Treebones resort. She estimated that bookings are 30% or more ahead of last year, and rates are unchanged since then. But “it’s still not feeling super crowded, which is nice. Everything still feels kind of calm.”

But added traffic has raised some anxiety. On May 19, Monterey County’s Board of Supervisors voted to explore a 12-month ban on parking at Bixby Bridge, one of the region’s top photo spots.

Over the years, the number of cars parking near the bridge — often illegally, sometimes impeding emergency vehicles — has risen. The proposed parking moratorium won’t take effect until the supervisors discuss it further.

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Busy as things are, several business owners pointed out that many international travelers have not yet returned — perhaps because most make their plans more than six months ahead, perhaps because of global politics, perhaps a little of each.

The biggest challenge for businesses during this resurgence? “Restaffing and retaining,” said Handy at Treetops.

At Nepenthe, Gafill said his business has seen a 45% boost in guest volume since the road’s reopening. Gafill said he would have expected a 35% pickup, “simply by virtue of reopening the highway.” The additional 10%, he said, might be “all that pent-up demand,” aided by “a very beautiful and very dry winter,” followed by a mild spring.

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A lunch crowd dines at popular restaurant Nepenthe.

A lunch crowd dines at popular restaurant Nepenthe.

Another possible factor: Nobody can be sure how long the road will remain open.

To cope with the influx of people, Gafill said, “everybody is trying to recruit and retain their existing staff.”

At the Ragged Point Inn, where rates dropped as low as $149 nightly last fall, rates are back over $200 and staffers are suggesting that customers book at least six months ahead. The inn has reopened its snack bar for the first time since early 2023, and management is investing in capital upgrades and staging live music on weekends throughout the summer.

Business “is up over 100%,” said Diane Ramey, whose family owns the inn. “I know not all of our neighbors are having the same lift, but everybody is doing better.”

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Traffic approaching Bixby Bridge.

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A visitor poses in an oversized chair at Big Sur River Inn.

A visitor poses in an oversized chair at Big Sur River Inn.

Even at the New Camaldoli Hermitage, a Benedictine monastery above Lucia, the road’s reopening and coming summer season have made a difference. Bookings are up an estimated 30% at the hermitage, which rent rooms and cottages (for two nights or more) to visitors who agree to its requirement of silence.

Big Sur business owners advise visitors to travel on weekdays for less traffic and the best hotel rates, and to get on the road as early as possible.

Since its opening in 1937, the highway has been vulnerable to landslides and shifting ground, operating on a longstanding cycle of landslide, closure, repair, reopening and then another landslide, or sometimes a fire. The U.S. Geological Survey has identified the Big Sur coastline as one of the most landslide-prone areas in the western United States. The 2023-2026 closure was the longest in the highway’s history.

Over time, road crews have used increasingly sophisticated strategies. In the most recent efforts, Caltrans said, it used drones to help survey the slopes and remotely operated bulldozers and excavators to reduce risks to workers.

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During the closure, no traffic was allowed on 6.8-mile span from just north of Lucia until about a mile south of the Esalen Institute. Drivers detoured inland by way of U.S. 101.

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Firings at CBS’ ’60 Minutes’ reflect the fight for media control in the age of Trump

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Firings at CBS’ ’60 Minutes’ reflect the fight for media control in the age of Trump

Correspondents of CBS’ 60 Minutes pose for a portrait in 2023. From left to right, they are Sharyn Alfonsi, L. Jon Wertheim, Bill Whitaker, Lesley Stahl, Scott Pelley, Cecilia Vega, and Anderson Cooper. Former Executive Producer Bill Owens sits on the far right. Only Wertheim, Whitaker and Stahl remain at the program.

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When CBS fired Scott Pelley on Tuesday night, the new 60 Minutes executive producer, Nick Bilton, told Pelley it was for insubordination at a staff meeting the day before.

The veteran correspondent argues he was defending the DNA of 60 Minutes and the integrity of its journalism.

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The battle royale over the network’s most prestigious and profitable news program is part of a broader fight over the direction of CBS News.

And given CBS’s acquisition by a billionaire family whose business interests have become intertwined with the political interests of President Trump, it reflects a larger war over control of the media in the current moment.

That father and son, Larry and David Ellison, bought CBS’ parent company, Paramount, last summer. In January, they became co-owners of TikTok’s U.S. operations. Now they’re seeking approval from Trump’s regulators to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN.

A glamorous show shorn, for now, of most its stars

CBS fired Cecilia Vega, a correspondent, and Tanya Simon, the executive producer, from 60 Minutes last week. They are shown in this photo at the 2026 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner on April 25, 2026 in Washington, D.C.

CBS fired Cecilia Vega, a correspondent, and Tanya Simon, the executive producer, from 60 Minutes last week. They are shown in this photo at the 2026 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on April 25, 2026 in Washington, D.C.

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But the specifics of this individual episode matter — for 60 Minutes, CBS, its audience of millions, and even the news business itself.

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The program has been the most glamorous post in broadcast news. The correspondents are the stars of the show. And now, there are just three of them.

Anderson Cooper left last month, concerned over the direction of the network’s coverage. Last week was a virtual bloodbath: correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi were fired. So were a producer and two show executives — including Tanya Simon, a longtime staffer who had stepped up as executive producer when her predecessor resigned in protest before the Ellisons’ takeover.

With Pelley’s ouster, only correspondents Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and Jon Wertheim remain. Now they are considering whether to resign, according to two associates with knowledge.

Their brand-new boss, Bilton, was previously a tech reporter for The New York Times and an investigative reporter for Vanity Fair. He executive-produced a documentary for Netflix about a couple accused of laundering Bitcoin and has been a producer on several other films.

Notably, he has no experience in television news.

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Neither does Bari Weiss, whom David Ellison installed as the network’s editor in chief last October. The Ellisons also bought her center-right views-and-news site, The Free Press.

She has maintained that the network of Walter Cronkite needs a makeover for the digital moment. She has also contended for years that CBS, along with the rest of mainstream media, is too reflexively anti-Trump, anti-Israel, and too woke.

A rejection of CBS News executives’ overtures

The new executive producer of 60 Minutes, Nick Bilton, has been a tech journalist and documentary filmmaker, but lacks experience in broadcast news.

The new executive producer of 60 Minutes, Nick Bilton, has been a tech journalist and documentary filmmaker, but lacks experience in broadcast news.

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Bilton attempted to set a conciliatory tone at Monday’s meeting — his first with the show. Pelley, a formidable veteran correspondent and former CBS Evening News anchor, wasn’t having it.

Pelley called Bilton unwelcome and unqualified. And Pelley said that Weiss was attempting to “murder” the program.

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In firing Pelley on Tuesday, Bilton said the journalist had hijacked the meeting and rejected overtures to work constructively through their differences. (NPR obtained a copy of the firing notice.) Bilton wrote that Pelley’s “antipathy to the future of the show came through loud and clear.”

In his own statement late Tuesday evening, shared with NPR, Pelley accused CBS’s new news leadership of killing 60 Minutes‘ DNA and pushing him “to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story” and “to include assertions that are unverified.”

The accusations, to which CBS has not yet responded, echo those made by Alfonsi and Vega, the two correspondents fired last week.

Earlier this year, Alfonsi publicly complained after Weiss held one of her stories at the last minute, and kept it frozen for weeks, demanding an on-camera interview with a Trump White House official that never played out. It ran, unchanged from the intended version, with additional statements from the administration tacked on to the end.

After being fired, Vega said in a statement obtained by NPR that her team had “experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories.”

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“Let’s call this what it is: censorship, both censorship and self-driven” Vega continued. “It is dangerous for the show and dangerous for democracy.”

Weiss previously rejected Alfonsi’s and Vega’s allegations. (CBS said Vega’s claims, for example, were “not based in reality” while expressing appreciation for her work.)

Weiss and Bilton say digital threat requires a 60 Minutes overhaul now

In a meeting this morning, Weiss said that Pelley chose his own path — that is, to be fired rather than to find a way to work through his concerns, according to attendees. The network and Weiss have not yet publicly addressed Pelley’s accusations of interference. 

Bilton and Weiss say they respect the show’s traditions, its accomplishments and its legacy of enterprise reporting, extended interviews and visual storytelling. It rose in the ratings 9% over the past season under Simon.

The two news leaders say, however, 60 Minutes needs to be overhauled before it becomes increasingly irrelevant in the era of streamers and other sources of news, information and entertainment in the digital age.

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Interviews with 12 current and former CBS News staffers, from producers to executives, suggest great reservations and suspicions remain about Weiss’ judgment and her ability to handle the prominent and even famous journalists on whom her division relies.

Weiss had initially sought to reinvent the CBS Evening News, dropping a two-anchor format that had sagged in the ratings. Cooper turned down Weiss’ overtures to anchor it and left the network altogether, concerned about her approach, according to associates. (They spoke on condition of anonymity because Cooper has not chosen to speak publicly on the matter.)

David Ellison became chairman and CEO of CBS' parent company, Paramount, after buying it last year.

David Ellison became chairman and CEO of CBS’ parent company, Paramount, after buying it last year.

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The ratings have continued to sag under new anchor Tony Dokoupil. And some CBS journalists, including producers who have left the Evening News, have publicly accused Weiss of making editorial decisions driven by politics. She has rejected those claims.

The decision to take on overhauling two key shows — one listing, one highly profitable, both high profile — carries significant risks for Weiss and the network, even apart from other considerations.

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But the Ellisons’ presence cannot be ignored.

When Shari Redstone was negotiating the sale of CBS’s parent company, Paramount, to the Ellisons’ Skydance Media last year, the network announced the end of Stephen Colbert’s late night show. He had been one of the president’s most biting and acerbic critics.

David Ellison also made a series of concessions directly to Trump’s chief broadcast regulator, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, gutting CBS’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and appointing a conservative ombudsman to field complaints of bias against its news reporting.

Carr and other regulators approved the Paramount deal last summer.

The accommodations echo those made by other media titans.

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Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos remade the editorial pages of the Washington Post, which he owns, into a far more hospitable zone for Trump at the outset of his second term. So did Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a noted medical device inventor. Amazon and Blue Origin have multi-billion dollar contracts with the federal government. Soon-Shiong’s medical research firm routinely has patent applications up for review with federal regulators. One was approved Tuesday.

The Ellisons are hoping to win approval from federal regulators next month for their purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery in a deal valued at more than $110 billion. It would include Warner Bros. Studio, HBO and CNN, among other properties.

As Weiss routs CBS News’ old guard, the question of what role she might play at CNN — and what changes that portends at CBS — hangs over journalists at the two networks. The fate of 60 Minutes serves as a high-stakes case study for both.

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