CBS News


CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio broadcaster CBS. It is headquartered in New York City. Along with ABC News and NBC News, it has long been among the big three broadcast news networks in the United States.
CBS News television programs include CBS Evening News, CBS Mornings, news magazine programs CBS News Sunday Morning, 60 Minutes, and 48 Hours, and Sunday morning political affairs program Face the Nation.
CBS News Radio produces hourly newscasts for hundreds of radio stations, and also oversees CBS News podcasts like The Takeout Podcast. CBS News also operates CBS News 24/7, a 24-hour digital news network.

History

In 1929, the Columbia Broadcasting System began making regular radio news broadcasts, which were five-minute summaries taken from reports from United Press, one of the three wire services that supplied newspapers with national and international news. In December 1930, CBS chief William S. Paley hired journalist Paul W. White away from United Press as CBS's news editor. Paley put the radio network's news operation at the same level as entertainment, and authorized White to interrupt programming if events warranted. Along with other networks, CBS chafed at the breaking news embargo imposed upon radio by the wire services, which prevented them from using bulletins until they first appeared in print. CBS disregarded an embargo when it broke the story of the Lindbergh kidnapping in 1932, using live on-the-air reporting. Radio networks scooped print outlets with news of the 1932 presidential election.
In March 1933, White was named vice president and general manager in charge of news at CBS. As the first head of CBS News, he began to build an organization that soon established a legendary reputation.
In 1935, White hired Edward R. Murrow, and sent him to London in 1937 to run CBS Radio's European operation. White led a staff that would come to include Richard C. Hottelet, Charles Collingwood, William L. Shirer, Eric Sevareid, Bill Downs, John Charles Daly, Joseph C. Harsch, Cecil Brown, Elmer Davis, Quincy Howe, H. V. Kaltenborn, Robert Trout, and Lewis Shollenberger.
"CBS was getting its ducks in a row for the biggest news story in history, World War II", wrote radio historian John Dunning.

World War II

In 1940, William S. Paley recruited Edmund A. Chester from his position as Bureau Chief for Latin America at the Associated Press to coordinate the development of the international shortwave radio Network of the Americas, called La Cadena de las Américas, in 1942. Broadcasting in concert with the assistance of the Department of State, the Office for Inter-American Affairs chaired by Nelson Rockefeller and Voice of America as part of President Roosevelt's support for Pan-Americanism, this CBS radio network provided vital news and cultural programming throughout South America and Central America during the World War II era.
Through its operations in 20 nations, it fostered benevolent diplomatic relations between the United States and other nations in the region while providing an alternative to Nazi propaganda.
File:Walter_Cronkite_November_1983_gtfy.00866_.jpg|thumb|Walter Cronkite, who was anchor of CBS Evening News for nearly two decades, from 1962 to 1981
File:Couric.PNG|thumb|Katie Couric, the first solo female anchor of a major evening news program, served as anchor and managing editor of CBS Evening News from 2006 to 2011.
After becoming commercial station WCBW in 1941, the pioneer CBS television station in New York City broadcast two daily news programs, at 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. weekdays, anchored by Richard Hubbell. Most of the newscasts featured Hubbell reading a script with only occasional cutaways to a map or still photograph. When Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941, WCBW, took to the air at 8:45 p.m. with an extensive special report. The national emergency even broke down the unspoken wall between CBS radio and television. WCBW executives convinced radio announcers and experts such as George Fielding Elliot and Linton Wells to come down to the Grand Central studios during the evening and give information and commentary on the attack. The WCBW special report that night lasted less than 90 minutes. But that special broadcast pushed the limits of live television in 1941 and opened up new possibilities for future broadcasts. As CBS wrote in a special report to the Federal Communications Commission, the unscheduled live news broadcast on December 7 "was unquestionably the most stimulating challenge and marked the greatest advance of any single problem faced up to that time."
Additional newscasts were scheduled in the early days of the war. In May 1942, WCBW, like most television stations, sharply cut back its live program schedule and the newscasts were canceled, since the station temporarily suspended studio operations, resorting exclusively to the occasional broadcast of films. This was primarily because much of the staff had either joined the service or were redeployed to war related technical research, and to prolong the life of the early, unstable cameras which were now impossible to repair due to the wartime lack of parts.
In May 1944, as World War II began to turn in favor of the Allies, WCBW reopened the studios and the newscasts returned, briefly anchored by Ned Calmer, and then by Everett Holles. After the end of World War II, expanded news programs appeared on the WCBW schedule – – first anchored by Milo Boulton, and later by Douglas Edwards. On May 3, 1948, Edwards began anchoring CBS Television News, a regular 15-minute nightly newscast on the CBS television network, including WCBS-TV. It aired every weeknight at 7:30 p.m., and was the first regularly scheduled, network television news program featuring an anchor. NBC's offering at the time, NBC Television Newsreel, was simply film footage with voice narration.

Mid-late 20th century and 21st century

In 1948, CBS Radio journalist Edmund Chester emerged as the television network's new Director of News Special Events and Sports.
In 1949, Chester collaborated with one of CBS' original Murrow Boys, Larry LeSueur, to produce the innovative news series United Nations In Action. Underwritten by Ford Motor Company as a public service, the broadcasts endeavored to provide live coverage of the proceedings of the United Nations General Assembly from its interim headquarters in Lake Success, New York. They proved to be successful, and were honored with a George Foster Peabody Award for Television News in 1949.

In 1950, the name of the nightly newscast was changed to Douglas Edwards with the News, and the following year, it became the first news program to be broadcast on both coasts, thanks to a new coaxial cable connection, prompting Edwards to use the greeting "Good evening everyone, coast to coast." In 1962, the broadcast was renamed the CBS Evening News when Walter Cronkite replaced Edwards. Edwards remained with CBS News, contributing to various daytime television newscasts and radio news broadcasts until his retirement on April 1, 1988.
From the 1990s until 2014, CBS News operated its own production unit CBS News Productions, to produce alternative programming for cable networks, and CBS EyeToo Productions, later renamed CBS Eye Productions, a company that produced documentaries and nonfiction programs.
CBS News ran a cable channel, CBS Eye on People, from 1997 to 2000, and Spanish language channel CBS Telenoticias from 1996 to 1998.

21st century: The 2020s

In 2021, CBS News had set up its own production unit. See It Now Studios, which was headed by Susan Zirinsky.
Until April 2021, the president and senior executive producer of CBS News was Susan Zirinsky, who assumed the role on March 1, 2019. Zirinsky, the first female president of the network's news division, was announced as the choice to replace David Rhodes on January 6, 2019. The announcement came amid news that Rhodes would step down as president of CBS News "amid falling ratings and the fallout from revelations from an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations" against CBS News figures and Rhodes.
In April 2021, CBS Television Stations and CBS News merged their two divisions into one entity named CBS News and Stations.
Tom Cibrowski was hired as president in February 2025.
On April 15, 2021, CBS Television Stations and CBS News announced that their respective divisions would merge into one entity, to be named CBS News and Stations. It was also announced that Neeraj Khemlani and Wendy McMahon were named presidents and co-heads. This transition was completed on May 3, 2021. On August 14, 2023, after Khemlani announced he was stepping down, CBS News named McMahon as its sole president and CEO. The next day on August 15, CBS News appointed Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, who supervised the Washington, D.C. bureau as its president. She stepped down in July 2024.
In 2022, CBS News hired former Trump administration official Mick Mulvaney as a paid on-air contributor. Mulvaney's hiring stirred controversy within the company due to his history of promoting Donald Trump's false claims and attacking the press. CBS News co-president Neeraj Khemlani told CBS morning show staff, "If you look at some of the people that we've been hiring on a contributor basis, being able to make sure that we are getting access to both sides of the aisle is a priority because we know the Republicans are going to take over, most likely, in the midterms".
In October 2024, President Donald Trump sued CBS News over a 60 Minutes interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, alleging that the network engaged in election interference through deceptive editing. The lawsuit, which sought $10 billion in damages, claimed that CBS violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by airing two different edits of Harris' response to a question about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The lawsuit was widely described as frivolous by legal experts.
Initially, the network released a statement that it would "vigorously defend" against the suit. In July 2025, CBS News' parent company, Paramount Global, settled the lawsuit for $16 million, which would be given to Trump's future presidential library and lawyer costs. The settlement was described as a capitulation to Trump’s executive power and a blow to freedom of the press, with Steven Colbert characterizing it as “a big fat bribe”. Colbert’s show was cancelled shortly thereafter. Paramount's merger with Skydance Media, which needed executive approval, was cited as a key motivating factor in the network's decision to settle.
In January 2025, Norah O'Donnell, who was based in the CBS News bureau in Washington, D.C., for over five years, departed, resulting in CBS Evening News to once again be broadcast from the CBS Broadcast Center's historic Studio 47 in New York City. Face the Nation host and CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan, however, continue to be based in Washington, D.C.
In April 2025, 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens left the network, citing deterioration of journalistic independence. The following month, CBS News president Wendy McMahon also resigned due to disagreements with corporate leadership. As the Federal Communications Commission required the appointment of an ombudsman for CBS News for agency approval of the Paramount–Skydance merger, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison appointed Kenneth R. Weinstein to the position in September 2025.
In October 2025, Bari Weiss was appointed editor-in-chief of CBS News. This announcement was interpreted by critics as a mark of the organization shifting rightwards in response to the Trump Era, and was likewise praised by Trump himself. This was shortly followed by layoffs, which — as one former CBS producer alleged — primarily targeted racial minorities at the company, while white employees were simply shifted to other jobs. The total losses were reported around 100 employees, including eight on-air hosts, all of whom were women. Also after the appointments of Weiss and Weinstein as editor-in-chief and ombudsman respectively, the head of the Standards and Practices department for CBS News resigned in October 2025.
Amid the editorial changes being undertaken by Bari Weiss, new CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil released a promo promising that the newscast planned to remain objective and editorially independent from politicians, advertisers, and corporate interests. He argued that news media coverage at CBS on topics such as the Iraq war, COVID lockdowns, Hillary Clinton's emails, and Hunter Biden's laptop was "skewed" in favor of "political and academic elites and away from the concerns of normal people". CBS reported its 38-page handbook of principles was reduced to "5 simple values", of which one was "we love America". Variety reported the pro-America pledge "reinforce speculation that Ellison put Weiss in charge of CBS News in an effort to boost its appeal among MAGA supporters generally — and with President Trump specifically".
In January 2026, new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss held an all-staff meeting outlining her strategic vision for the troubled news division. She said she planned to hire about 18 paid commentators to broaden the range of voices and content at the network and indicated that she expects to make significant newsroom cuts as part of reshaping the organization.

Broadcast history

The information on programs listed in this section came directly from CBS News in interviews with the Vice President of Communications and NewsWatch Dallas.
According to the CBS News Library and source Sandy Genelius, the "CBS Evening News" was the program title for both Saturday and Sunday evening broadcasts. The program title for the Sunday late night news beginning in 1963 was the "CBS Sunday Night News". These titles were also seen on the intro slide of the program's opening. The program airs on Saturday, and Sunday nights at 7:00 p.m.–7:30 p.m. UTC on CBS.

CBS News television programs

News programs

CBS News produces newscasts and features for radio stations through CBS News Radio, which is the oldest unit of CBS and tracings its roots to the company's founding in 1927, and the news division took shape over the decade that followed. The list of CBS News correspondents includes those reporting on CBS News Radio.
CBS News Radio produces the oldest daily news show on radio or television, the CBS World News Roundup, which first aired in 1938; in 2018, it celebrated its 80th anniversary. The World News Roundup airs twice every weekday, broadcasting a morning edition anchored by Steve Kathan and produced by Paul Farry, and a late edition anchored by Dave Barrett and produced by James Hutton. The evening Roundup, previously known as The World Tonight, has aired in its current form since 1956, and has been anchored by Blair Clark, Douglas Edwards, Dallas Townsend, and Christopher Glenn, Glenn also anchored the morning Roundup prior to his death in 2006.
CBS Radio Network provides newscasts at the top of the hour, regular updates at :31 minutes past the hour, the popular Newsfeeds for affiliates, including WCBS in New York City and KYW in Philadelphia, at :35 minutes past the hour, and breaking news updates when developments warrant, often at :20 and :50 minutes past the hour. Skyview Networks handles the distribution.

CBS Newspath

CBS Newspath is CBS News' satellite news-gathering service, similar in format to CNN Newsource. Newspath provides national hard news, sports highlights, regional spot news, features and live coverage of major breaking news events for affiliate stations to use in their local news broadcasts. The service has a team of domestic and global correspondents and freelance reporters dedicated to reporting for affiliates, and offers several different national or international stories fronted by reporters on a daily basis. CBS Newspath also relies heavily on local affiliates sharing content. Stations will often contribute locally obtained footage that may be of national interest. It replaced a similar service, CBS News NewsNet.
In late 1999, the news-gathering arms of CBS, ABC and Fox agreed to form a joint-venture footage sharing pool, known as Network News Service.

CBS News 24/7

CBS News 24/7 is a 24-hour streaming news channel which launched on November 4, 2014, as CBSN. At the time as CBSN, the channel features live news from 9a.m. to midnight on weekdays. The channel makes all of the resources of CBS News available directly on digital platforms with live, anchored coverage 15 hours each week. It is a first for a U.S. 24-hour news channel to forgo cable and be available exclusively only online and on smart devices such as smart TV's Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire and others. The channel is based at CBS's New York City headquarters.
The morning hours are typically anchored by Errol Barnett and Vladimir Duthiers, with afternoons anchored by a rotating team. Various correspondents in Washington D.C. anchor a late-afternoon political program titled, 'America Decides' and John Dickerson anchors "The Daily Report", which airs Mondays through Thursdays.

News bureaus

Domestic bureaus

Africa

Current television hosts, anchors, correspondents, and reporters

;New York
;Washington, D.C.
;Atlanta
  • Dave Malkoff – Correspondent
  • Mark Strassmann – Correspondent
  • Skyler Henry – Reporter
;Chicago
  • Charlie DeMar – Reporter, CBS Chicago/WBBM-TV
;Dallas
  • David Schechter – National Environmental Correspondent
  • Omar Villafranca – Correspondent
;Los Angeles
;Miami
  • Manuel Bojorquez – Correspondent
;London
;Hong Kong
;Rome
+ : deceased

Presidents of CBS News

In 2017, CBS News entered into a content-sharing agreement with BBC News, respectively replacing previous arrangements between the BBC and ABC News, and CBS and Sky News. The partnership includes the ability to share resources, footage, and reports, and conduct "efficient planning of news gathering resources to increase the content of each broadcaster's coverage of world events".
Although they do not have an official partnership, CNN and CBS News share correspondents and contributors, including Anderson Cooper and Sanjay Gupta.
In 2022, CBS News entered into a content-sharing partnership with The Weather Channel, where The Weather Channel meteorologists will appear on CBS News programs.

Controversies

Notable controversies include the resignation of CBS News president Fred Friendly in 1966 to protest against Vietnam War coverage, the 2004 Killian documents controversy involving Dan Rather presenting improperly verified documents, accusations of liberal bias and plagiarism, and several instances of misrepresented or erroneously attributed footage.
In 2025, following editorial changes by owner Larry Ellison and editor-in-chief Bari Weiss that same year, CBS News faced allegations of a conservative, pro-Trump, pro-MAGA bias, and resignations and criticism from its hosts and journalists over a loss of journalistic independence.