Former “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens is reportedly writing a tell-all memoir about his 37 years at CBS News, taking aim at owner Paramount, its CEO David Ellison and editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, among others.
In a proposal obtained by Breaker Media, Owens describes Paramount’s decision to settle President Trump’s lawsuit over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris as “perhaps the worst legal strategy ever employed by the worst-run media company in the history of America.”
The proposed book would mark Owens’ most extensive public account yet of the turmoil that engulfed CBS News and “60 Minutes” before and after he resigned from the network.
Owens resigned last year after claiming that growing corporate involvement in editorial decisions had deprived him of the independence he believed the executive producer of “60 Minutes” needed to do the job.
According to Breaker, he alleges in the proposal that Paramount had “set up an internal spy ring that the Vichy government would have admired,” claiming scripts and story plans were routinely shared with senior corporate leadership.
As for Trump’s suit, Owens writes: “There wasn’t a lawyer alive who believed the case had merit, and I didn’t want to set a precedent by handing over all of our interviews to the candidate who was pointing a gun at us.”
He accuses Paramount executives of “corporate cowardice” over the settlement, according to Breaker.
Ellison and Weiss also come under fire.
Owens writes that Ellison promised not to politicize CBS News before hiring Weiss to run the network.
“Weiss is an opinion writer who has made a name for herself by having a lot of opinions,” Owens states.
“In her first week at the helm, she asked each journalist to do some homework. Write a note to her about everything you are working on — her version of — what did you do over summer break, children?”
Owens reportedly reserves some of his harshest criticism for former Paramount controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, faulting her decision to reunite CBS and Viacom despite what he says was overwhelming advice against it.
“Against almost every serious piece of advice, Shari decided to merge Viacom, a weak cable company, with CBS,” Owens writes. “But merger is too mild a noun for what happened.”
He calls the deal “more like a rape, with Viacom consuming CBS” and leaving behind “a poor, slow child named Paramount” that was “not ready for the world, or Wall Street.”
Owens is represented by CAA literary agent Sloan Harris, according to Breaker.
The memoir proposal comes as “60 Minutes” continues to reel from months of upheaval.
Following Owens’ resignation, CBS News replaced him with longtime producer Tanya Simon.
Months later, after Weiss took over the news division under Paramount Skydance, Simon was dismissed along with correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, senior executive producer Draggan Mihailovich, veteran producer Guy Campanile and digital operations chief Matthew Polevoy.
The shakeup culminated in the firing of veteran correspondent Scott Pelley after he confronted newly installed executive producer Nick Bilton and accused Weiss of “murdering” “60 Minutes.”
A spokesperson for Paramount television chief George Cheeks disputed portions of Owens’ account, telling Breaker Media that Cheeks never supported apologizing to Trump as part of the settlement and never reviewed “60 Minutes” scripts before they aired.
The Post has sought comment from Owens, Redstone, CAA and CBS News.
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