CBS News

In 1933, CBS news editor Paul White organized the Columbia News Service, setting up newsgathering bases in New York, Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles and using local newspaper reporters as correspondents.⁠[1]

Edward R. Murrow joined CBS in 1935 and went to London in 1937, where he hired William L. Shirer. On March 13, 1938, CBS aired a 35-minute special report linking correspondents in Europe with an anchor in New York, a format that later developed into World News Roundup.⁠[1]

On May 3, 1948, Douglas Edwards began anchoring CBS-TV News, a regular 15-minute evening newscast. CBS’s news distribution thus expanded from radio broadcasting to television.⁠[1]

On March 9, 1954, See It Now, produced by Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly, examined the words and actions of Senator Joseph McCarthy, relying mainly on clips of his television appearances accompanied by analysis. The program had earlier reported on Milo Radulovich, who was discharged from the Air Force reserve because family members were accused of communist ties; a hearing after the report led to his reinstatement.⁠[2]

Walter Cronkite succeeded Douglas Edwards as evening news anchor on April 16, 1962. On September 2, 1963, the program was extended from 15 to 30 minutes. He went on to anchor coverage of major events including the Kennedy assassination, the Moon landing and the Vietnam War, and after reporting from Vietnam in 1968 he expressed a pessimistic view of the war’s prospects in a special broadcast. On March 6, 1981, he left the anchor desk and was succeeded by Dan Rather.⁠[3]

On September 24, 1968, 60 Minutes, created by Don Hewitt, premiered. Built mainly around investigative reports, interviews with newsmakers and in-depth profiles, it became a long-running CBS News newsmagazine.⁠[4]

On September 8, 2004, 60 Minutes Wednesday aired a report on George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard. The memos it used were called into question, and on September 20 CBS acknowledged that it could not verify their authenticity. An independent review released on January 10, 2005, found failures in the production, vetting and post-broadcast response, but did not find political bias on the part of the staff involved. CBS fired producer Mary Mapes, asked three executives to resign, and created a senior vice president for standards and special projects, headed by Linda Mason, to strengthen review of anonymous sources, the authenticity of materials and controversial reports.⁠[5]

On November 6, 2014, CBS News and CBS Interactive launched CBSN, an ad-supported, around-the-clock online news service. At launch it scheduled 15 hours of anchored live programming each weekday and was distributed through the website, connected TVs and mobile devices; its player let viewers go back to earlier segments and then return to the live stream.⁠[6]

On April 15, 2021, CBS announced that CBS News and CBS Television Stations would be brought under a single division and leadership structure, naming Neeraj Khemlani and Wendy McMahon as co-heads. The arrangement combined resources from national news, CBSN, local streaming news platforms and the owned stations; both reported to George Cheeks, head of the CBS Entertainment Group.⁠[7]

On January 24, 2022, CBSN relaunched as the CBS News Streaming Network, using a new studio at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York and integrating digital content from national live coverage and news programs. A Miami channel launched the same day became the 13th local streaming service; at the time the service was available free on more than 30 digital platforms.⁠[8]

In programming changes announced on April 9, 2024, CBS News named its national streaming news service CBS News 24/7 effective April 22 and announced more live news. The Daily Report with John Dickerson and America Decides, expanded to one hour, were part of the lineup starting that day.⁠[9]

On April 22, 2025, 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens resigned, saying he could no longer make decisions independently based on what was right for the program and its audience. At the time, Donald Trump was suing CBS over the editing of a Kamala Harris interview, and the parent company was pursuing a merger with Skydance. CBS denied that the interview had been edited to favor Harris and had released the full transcript; Owens’s judgment about independence was the reason he gave for resigning.⁠[10]

On October 6, 2025, Paramount announced its acquisition of The Free Press and named co-founder Bari Weiss editor in chief of CBS News, reporting to David Ellison. CBS News president Tom Cibrowski works with her and reports to George Cheeks, head of TV media.⁠[11]

On December 10, 2025, CBS announced that Tony Dokoupil would become anchor of CBS Evening News, with a planned start on January 5, 2026. A program description updated in January 2026 confirmed that he was anchoring the flagship evening newscast, with Kim Harvey as executive producer, and that the program covers politics, technology, everyday life and international news.⁠[12][13]

On March 20, 2026, CBS News announced that it would shut down CBS News Radio on May 22, citing economic pressure on the radio business and changes in media consumption. At the time the service supplied content to about 700 stations, and CBS News announced the same day that it was cutting about 6% of its staff. The end of the radio service was a separate business arrangement from the continuing television and online news operations.⁠[14]

On May 22, 2026, CBS News Radio formally ceased broadcasting, with Christopher Cruise anchoring its final newscast.⁠[15]

On September 13, 2026, 60 Minutes opened its 59th season. Before that, Nick Bilton had succeeded Tanya Simon as executive producer, Scott Pelley, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega had left the program, and Anderson Cooper had departed of his own accord. Pelley publicly accused the new management of asking him to insert bias and falsehoods into his reports, a claim CBS denied.⁠[16]

CBS News, ABCABCABC (American Broadcasting Company) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It grew out of NBC’s Blue radio network, took its name after becoming independent in 1943, developed into a national television network after merging with United Paramount Theatres in 1953, was acquired by Capital Cities in 1985, and has been owned by The Walt Disney Company since 1996. With CBS and NBC it is one of the three traditional U.S. broadcast networks, and it is one of the five networks that rotate in the White House television pool.Open the full entry News, CNNCNNCNN (Cable News Network) is an Atlanta-based news organization founded by Ted Turner on June 1, 1980, as the world’s first 24-hour television news channel. It has been owned in turn by Turner Broadcasting System, Time Warner, AT&T and Warner Bros. Discovery, became part of Skydance Corporation along with Warner Bros. Discovery in October 2026, and is one of the five networks that rotate in the White House television pool.Open the full entry, NBCNBCNBC (National Broadcasting Company) is an American national commercial broadcast television network. It was founded by RCA in 1926, began as a radio network and later developed television. With ABC and CBS it is one of the three traditional U.S. broadcast networks; it passed to General Electric with RCA in 1986, merged with Universal to form NBCUniversal in 2004, has been controlled by Comcast since 2011, and is one of the five networks that rotate in the White House television pool.Open the full entry News and Fox News rotate White House TV pool duty: each day one network sends a three-person crew of a camera operator, an audio technician and a producer or reporter to film the president’s activities, and the footage is then distributed to other networks and news organizations. On September 18, 2026, Trump announced on Truth Social that he was “banning” CNN, MS NOWMS NOWMS NOW (My Source for News, Opinion and the World) is an American cable channel for political news and commentary. It was formerly MSNBC, launched in July 1996 as a joint venture of NBC and Microsoft, adopted its current name on November 15, 2025, as its business was spun off from Comcast, and since January 2026 has belonged to the independent public company Versant Media Group. It is known for its liberal-leaning commentary programs.Open the full entry and Politico from the White House, citing their constant “reporting” of fake news; on September 19, the White House barred the three outlets’ reporters from entering and revoked their credentials, saying that covering the president was a “privilege — not a right.” CNN had been scheduled to serve as the TV pool on September 21, but the White House schedule released the night before listed no television network as the primary TV pool.⁠[17][18][19][19][19][20][20][21][21]

On September 21, CBS, ABC, CNN, Fox News and NBC issued a joint statement: “The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.” The TV pool then stopped covering events designated as presidential pool coverage, and no replacement pool was put in place; other pool coverage, including Congress, continued as normal. The White House directed the public to live streams on its app, and that day’s ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new helipad on the South Lawn went without network pool footage.⁠[21][22][22][22][22][22]

The suspension lasted about four days and coincided with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the White House, so there was much less video coverage of the related ceremonies and events; Trump later complained that CNN and MS NOW had not covered Xi’s visit, without mentioning his own ban on the two outlets. During the suspension, the networks continued to cover White House events open to the press on their own. On September 24, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ruled that the ban was likely unconstitutional, and the White House restored the three outlets’ credentials that day, although the ruling did not directly address the pool. On September 25, the five networks resumed the pool, with CBS News as the primary TV pool network on duty that day, and the networks later aired footage of Trump’s meeting with Xi at the White House.⁠[17][17][17][23][20][24][25][25][25]

In October 2026, the U.S. Justice Department’s Antitrust Division opened an investigation into ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox News to examine whether their suspension of the White House TV pool violated antitrust law. Justice Department spokesperson Emily Covington said on October 10: “Members of the television press pool have boycotted covering White House events. Group boycotts among commercial competitors can violate the Sherman Act. The Antitrust Division is simply investigating to determine whether these news organizations have violated the antitrust laws.” A Justice Department official said the department had sent out civil investigative demands on October 9. Representatives for CBS declined to comment, none of the five networks commented further that weekend, and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.⁠[17][20][23][17][23][23][26][23]

Bruce Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the investigation appeared to be a pretext for seeking records about how the networks were covering the White House during a media ban the president himself had imposed; Cory Booker, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, said the Antitrust Division should be going after the corporations driving up prices rather than investigating newsrooms. William Kovacic, a former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, said an antitrust claim against the networks would likely have a “very remote prospect of success”; Sam Weinstein, a professor at Cardozo School of Law, said a non-commercial boycott is typically protected by the First Amendment. David Ellison, CEO of CBS News’s parent company Skydance, had earlier vowed to protect editorial independence and said at a town hall that he backed CNN’s lawsuit over the White House ban. As of October 2026, it was unclear whether the networks would comply with the Justice Department’s investigative demands.⁠[17][17][17][27][27][27][17][17][27]

CBS News is a news organization within the Paramount system that provides news for channels including the CBS television network, CBSNews.com, Paramount+ and CBS News 24/7. Its main programs include CBS Evening News, CBS Mornings, CBS News Sunday Morning, Face the Nation, 60 Minutes and 48 Hours. National newsgathering and local station resources work together through the CBS News and Stations organizational structure.⁠[28][7]