All this comes as newly installed executive producer Nick Bilton shared a memo with 60 Minutes staffers on Thursday, offering an olive branch by saying the legendary program will continue to maintain its editorial independence and pursue stories “without fear or favor.” In that note, Bilton announced that Scott’s former producer, Maria Gavrilovic, will be the show’s new senior producer.
Headed to court: Alexis Wilkins, the girlfriend of FBI director Kash Patel, has filed a defamation lawsuit against MS NOW. The lawsuit filed in a federal court in Tennessee stems from a report filed by the network in December that said her security detail, provided by Patel, was ordered by him on more than one occasion to escort “one of her allegedly inebriated friends home after a night of partying in Nashville.”
According to Wilkins’ complaint, MS NOW knowingly “published these lies” even though they knew they were “false or with reckless disregard for the truth.”
In a statement to TVNewser, MS NOW president Rebecca Kutler said, “We stand firmly behind MS NOW’s reporting. As a general matter of practice, we don’t comment on ongoing legal matters.”
Anchor signoff: Sticking with MS NOW, Chris Jansing anchored her final show on Tuesday as she transitions to her new role as the network’s chief political reporter. Alicia Menendez, who takes over from Jansing starting Monday, June 15, joined her in the studio where she recalled one of her first encounters with Jansing.
“This is such a full-circle moment. ‘Jansing and Company’ was one of the first television shows on MS, one of your many shows, that I ever got to be a guest on,” Menendez said. “One of your producers who knew that I very much aspired to host a news show got in my ear and said: ‘Watch everything she does. Study everything she does. There is no one better than Chris Jansing.’”
