"Morley Safer of 60 Minutes was my father. He would be disgusted by what Bari Weiss is doing to CBS" This is excellent. Note the brutal letter Safer sent to Larry Tisch when Tisch was destroying CBS in 1980s. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

"'We're acutely aware that the premiere has to be a banger,' a well-placed CBS source remarked to me last night." @cnn.com report from Bari Weiss-world sounds like old Mickey Rooney/Li'l Rascal movies: "We've got to put on a big show to save the orphanage!" us.cnn.com/2026/06/04/m...

"Tonight on CBS, it's '60 Minutes' seen in its entirety following the football game and at its regularly scheduled time on the West Coast, then it's... MURDER.... ... she wrote." [scroll to bottom for this] linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/how-the-fe...

The thing nobody's discussing is the feeling employees of ABC News and NBC News have while watching their competition at CBS News basically light their entire business on fire and destroy the newsroom. I'm guessing they're probably simultaneously appreciative... and horrified.

"There is no question that the CBS News brand is severely damaged right now," said Michael Socolow, a former television journalist who is now a communication and journalism professor at the University of Maine. "The real question is whether it can be rebuilt." www.wsj.com/business/med...

A fascinating aspect of "60 Minutes" and CBS News falling apart is that we're learning - in real-time - that institutions are human collectives. There's the people that actually make CBS News, and "CBS News" the brand. They're not the same. But some employees embody the brand identity.

Happy 82nd anniversary of the day we *didn't* invade Normandy... But network radio newscasts told millions of Americans we did. Ooops. The greatest screw-up in broadcast journalism history: the phony (erroneous) D-Day Reports of June 3, 1944. slate.com/human-intere...

In his commencement address at Wake Forest last year, Scott Pelley stood up for the same things Edward R. Murrow believed in. If you haven’t seen it, or even if you have, there’s never been a better time to check it out: commencement.news.wfu.edu/2020s/c2025/...

How an "inept" F.C.C. rule turned a ratings loser into the most profitable show in the history of U.S. television. Plus: How "Marcus Welby, M.D." put @60minutes.bsky.social into intensive care in 1970. Latest in The Lint Trap linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/how-the-fe...

Scott Pelley, like Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite, Jim Lehrer, and many other respected network broadcast journalists, is from Texas. Pelley grew up in Lubbock, went to Texas Tech.* He went out guns blazing, like a true Texan. *His "60 Minutes" package on Mike Leach was fantastic.

You can either believe Pelley or Weiss (and CBS News corporate comms). Their claims/denials on political interference seem mutually exclusive. Pelley has 2 witnesses supporting his charges (Alfonsi, Vega). Weiss has CBS corporate comms denying Vega's claims. I know who I believe.

"She can’t fire everyone, so she’s facing a real dilemma. CBS News is a much larger organization than anything she’s ever managed. I keep thinking she was handed a major league franchise and she keeps treating it like a minor league outfit." linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/8-things-b...

"From the beginning, "60 Minutes" was star journalism, the reporter as hero, his personality more imporant than any picture, his questions more interesting than the answers." -Reuven Frank, "Out of Thin Air" (1991), p.310. That's one reason why firing Scott Pelley was a mistake.

The @nytimes.com comments on the @60minutes.bsky.social article are... just perfect. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/b...

For over 50 years, even as broadcast TV has changed, 60 Minutes has remained both popular and profitable. One cannot assess its deliberate destruction as anything but ideological.

"The changes that she’s made at the ‘Evening News’ have been catastrophic, so why should we expect that any of this is going to be any better?" -Scott Pelley, telling the truth to his bosses, and (likely) going out with integrity (and honesty + accuracy). www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/b...

When you hire somebody's who's never led a newsroom to step into the leadership of the top-performing TV news show in history right after a beloved boss is fired, you'd better be prepared for the first all-hands meeting. Better prepared than this. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/b...

The thing about predicting a stock market crash - like Andrew Ross Sorkin's best-selling new book - is that *of course* there'll be a stock market crash. It's inevitable.They used to be called "panics": Panic of 1837 Panic of 1893 Crash of 1929 Crash of 1987 Etc. It's going to happen. Only Q=when.

A.G. Sulzberger of @nytimes.com joins Pope Leo XIV in issuing serious warnings about how AI threatens the health of democratic civilization. When *it* happens... we can't say we weren't warned (even if AI eventually disappears these warnings). Alarm bells are ringing. variety.com/2026/biz/new...

“If 60 Minutes continues to be one of the most profitable programs on American television, it will continue to be insulated and have some protection,” Socolow said. “If it doesn’t, it won’t. It’s that simple.” Boy, was I wrong. www.cjr.org/feature/cbs-...

CBS management is turning over the most-lucrative TV broadcast in U.S. history - one that has earned an excess of $2 billion in profit in its history - and one of the most-lucrative on TV today in 2026, to somebody with zero TV news experience. It just doesn't make sense.

Wait a minute... so as a peer-reviewer, I'm required to check a box attesting to the fact that I have not used AI in my evaluation, but the scholar who's article I'm reviewing can submit a manuscript that used AI as long as an "AI-Transparency Statement" is included? What's going on here?

First time I've seen an "AI-Transparency Statement" at @chronicle.com. We seem to be in a limnal moment - will these be standardized and codified? Or, in a few years, dropped and forgotten? Is the key ethic transparency (which can easily be lied about)? www.chronicle.com/article/ai-g...

"I view Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical letter as an attempt to challenge the inevitability narrative. He seems to be trying to get ahead of AI before any sort of Hiroshima moment erupts." The Pope's a Media Ecologist? Latest in the Lint Trap linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/pope-leo-x...

The book is dead! Long live the book! yalereview.org/article/shei...

Catholic-informed contributions to the field of Media Ecology (Walter Ong, SJ, Marshall McLuhan, etc.) are foundational. Regardless of where you stand on Pope Leo's addition to this corpus, I think I can detect parts of it built on this tradition - which I think is very cool.

*signals are flashing* In last several days: 1. CIA Director visits Cuba. 2. Raul Castro indicted for murder. 3. Non-interventionist Gabbard quits as DNI. 4. President announces he's in DC for holiday weekend, skipping son's wedding, for...reasons. My guess? Cuba... Here we come. [I hope I'm wrong]

“Radio was hollowed out by the corporations, before its utility to the American citizen ended,” Socolow said. “You can trace it to the Telecom Act of 1996.” www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

As CBS Radio passes into history tonight, spare a thought for Otto “Deacon” Gardner—the prisoner who started the network’s news legacy with one remarkable broadcast. I wrote about him for @columjournreview.bsky.social and discussed him with @onthemedia.bsky.social: www.cjr.org/feature/cbs-... 🗃️

"CBS News Radio, 1927 - 2026: A Selective Remembrance" After 99 years (1927 - 2026), CBS News radio expires today. It was an important, historical institution. And there's a lot more to it beyond Murrow- as I wrote up here when its demise was announced linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/cbs-news-r...

I remember visiting the CBS News London bureau in the mid-1980s, in Bowater House (right above the Knightsbridge tube station, by Hyde Park). When you got off the elevator, on the wall, there was a beautiful bronze plaque with Edward R. Murrow and it said: "This is... London." RIP CBS News radio.

Me with Edward R. Murrow’s WWII microphone.

It is the last @colbertlateshow.bsky.social, airing almost a year after government pressure preceded its canceling. Turns out the overwhelming bipartisan evidence is the public really hates that. I wrote this for @donmoyn.bsky.social’s Can We Still Govern? open.substack.com/pub/donmoyni...

If interested… “Former CBS Radio Anchor Sam Litzinger Discusses The End Of An Era” www.press.org/newsroom/for...

I had missed this interesting piece by @michaelsocolow.bsky.social. (Thanks to @abradschwartz.bsky.social for sharing it with me.) “CBS News Radio, 1927 - 2026: A Selective Remembrance” linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/cbs-news-r...

America's biggest television star is... David Muir? His TV show ("ABC World News Tonight") is by far the most-watched TV show on the airwaves. It easily beats the top sports and entertainment shows in the ratings. Why? The latest in The Lint Trap. linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/americas-b...

🆘 dm or email me for writing/editing/journalism leads ([email protected]). please repost and share for outreach if you can. note: will not be revealing the news organization— it’s irrelevant. thanks so much.

A.I. seems to be an effective tool for learning which authors and journalists are prepared to beclown themselves in public.

Metaphor Alert™ A book, composed with the (acknowledged) assistance of A.I., titled "The Future of Truth" contains fabrications that the author attempts to pass along as verified and accurate. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/b...

More A.I.-generated plagiarism, this time at Sports Illustrated. A.I. is excellent at "patchwriting" (or "mosaic plagiarism"). Patchwriting used to be considered more insidious than straight-up copying because it signals a clear intention to deceive. futurism.com/artificial-i...

Not quite sure how to address this in my graduate-level humanities course this coming fall. The concept of "authorship" is being fundamentally restructured in a very short period of time (submission to acceptance, 19 days, published in less than 90 - but author is an editor of Journal).

The biggest change from my youth to today's world is that (in the last decade or so?) every news story's now simultaneously unbelievable and believable. Schrödinger’s journalism. It's disorienting & undermines any shared reality. When everything becomes believable, nothing is.

Ted Turner's launching of CNN in 1980 didn't just change TV news, it changed how we see the world. I joined @usatoday.com's The Excerpt to share my insights into the enduring impact of CNN and how journalism is shifting today. Listen here: art19.com/shows/5-thin...

When you historically investigate a billionaire's wealth, you'll find all kinds of ways the government made it possible. In today's Lint Trap, I point out the ways F.C.C. Chairman Newton Minow's work in the early 1960s made Ted Turner a billionaire. linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/how-newton...

Feels odd seeing so much Gawker nostalgia now, 10 years later. One year after it disappeared, on the anniversary in 2017, I wrote for @washingtonpost.com on what was lost. You could recognize what was coming even back then. www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteve...

An educational software platform getting held hostage, causing millions of college and high school students to lose access to educational materials as they prepare for final exams... ... is a metaphor for AI's future that's so spot on as to be almost unbelievable in 2026.

"A strange and disturbing shallowness": Did CNN "wreck" television news by 1994? Tom Rosenstiel thought so (cover story in @newrepublic.com) At the time this written, O.J. Simpson's trial was generating +$200 million in profit for CNN. That's why Murdoch started Fox News soon after.

"Turner is one of the few figures in American media history who left a clearly identifiable legacy. There was a media world that existed before CNN and the one that came after." Me in @theconversation.com on Turner's legacy in media history. theconversation.com/ted-turner-d...

It's difficult to explain in 2026 just how big the cable TV revolution of 1990 - 1995 was. In a year the U.S.A. won a war, Ted Turner was named Man of the Year for making the world smaller. Perot campaign (1992), O.J. Simpson Trial (1994-5) + Fox News (1996) all followed Turner's vision. RIP.

What do Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Don Corleone, and Rodney Dangerfield have in common? A rumination on R-E-S-P-E-C-T in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Everyone was feeling disrespected back then. Why? The latest in The Lint Trap. linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/just-a-lit...