Senator Chris Murphy

Dear Commons Community,

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy isn’t drawing arena-size crowds like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are as he tours the country talking to voters. But in a packed concert hall in rural North Carolina, people are starting to view the Democrat as worthy of the national spotlight.

Murphy and Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., have been staging events in Republican congressional districts in recent weeks, trolling GOP lawmakers such as Rep. Richard Hudson, who represents the area they visited Thursday. Hudson, the chairman of the House GOP campaign arm, has discouraged Republicans from holding town halls, so Murphy and Frost decided to hold one on his home turf in North Carolina. As reported by The Associated Press.

“We are doing the job that these Republican congressmen and senators won’t do,” Murphy told the hyped-up crowd of mostly older voters at the event, while acknowledging that Democrats need to do more to soothe their anxiety and counter President Donald Trump. “I want to make sure that everywhere, in every corner of this country, people are willing to stand up and fight.”

As other Democrats grasp for a response to Trump’s election, unsure of how to confront him, Murphy is channeling his own frustration and anger into a sustained blitz of television appearances, fundraising appeals, Senate floor speeches and events like the one in North Carolina. He also is talking directly to voters on social media, including through lengthy live videos on Instagram where he sits in his kitchen with a cocktail and tries to explain what he sees as “the central story” of Trump’s presidency — “the billionaire takeover of our government made possible by the destruction of our democracy.”

It’s a methodical approach for Murphy, 51, a serious-minded legislator who has been most well known for his yearslong fight to stem gun violence in the aftermath of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut that killed 20 first-grade students and six educators.

While the kitchen talks on Instagram seem to come more naturally to Murphy than riling up a crowd, his message is clearly resonating with his party’s base of voters, many of whom are angry at Democrats in Washington for inaction. He raised around $8 million in the first quarter of the year, a significant sum that could rival the totals for Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, who have been drawing much larger crowds on a tour together.

“I mean, I’m not Bernie Sanders,” Murphy said in an interview. “I’m not going to draw 70,000 people. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t still have an obligation to try to go out and support a national mobilization.”

Frustration with the Democratic Party’s leaders came to a boil last month, with most of the anger directed at Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York after he voted for a Republican bill to keep the government open just as the base was hoping to see more fight from their elected officials. Murphy was strongly against the bill, even if opposing it meant Democrats would trigger a government shutdown.

“When people see us engaged in risk-adverse behavior, then they are much less likely to show up for rallies to ultimately engage in the kind of civil disobedience we might need to save the democracy,” Murphy said.

His fundraising haul, and his barrage of media and events, begs questions about his future ambitions. But it is unclear where Murphy’s moment might lead. He insists that he is not thinking about a presidential bid or a future in Senate leadership after the No. 2 Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, announced this week that he will retire next year.

“It’s probably not a coincidence that my content is breaking through and more people are listening to me at a time when I’m not getting up every day thinking about my personal political future,” said Murphy, who was reelected to the Senate last year. “There’s not going to be an election in 2028 if we don’t win this fight right now.”

The answer isn’t a cop out, he says. “It seems kind of silly to think about anything other than the emergency that exists today,” he said. “That is legitimately what drives me.”

Ron Osborne, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Alamance County, where Thursday’s event was located, said he had not previously considered Murphy a major contender for the presidency in 2028. But “he’s doing the right things,” Osborne said.

“He is speaking out where others could do the same thing and have not,” Osborne said, and “that takes courage.”

Terry Greenlund, a 78-year-old Democrat who was also in the audience, said he thinks Murphy “has a way of talking with people.”

“I think it’s time for a new generation to move in with some new views and insight and energy,” Greenlund said, echoing many others in the room.

A spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee said Hudson would not comment on the event in his central North Carolina district. The spokesman, Will Kiley, said Murphy had “parachuted in” and his “extreme, far-left values couldn’t be more out of step with these communities.”

Murphy, 51 and the father of two teenagers, seems to be enjoying the attention. He joked at the event that he may not be as “cool” as Frost, who is the youngest member of Congress at 28. But Murphy is still decades younger than Schumer, Durbin and other Democratic colleagues who have controlled the party for years.

“I’m trying to be dad cool,” Murphy said.

Murphy, who did a similar event in Missouri on Friday, is not the only Democrat venturing into red states. In addition to Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 vice presidential nominee, and Rep. Ro Khanna of California have also recently traveled to talk to voters in Republican areas.

He said he does not want to “reinvent the wheel” with his fundraising haul, but he does not want to sit on it, either. Murphy said he plans to help organizations mobilize voters before the 2026 midterm elections and also put pressure on Republicans as they try to push tax and spending cuts through Congress.

“The only way that history tells us that you stop an elected leader from converting a country away from democracy is mass mobilization,” he said.

“Our party has made mistakes, and if we don’t learn from those mistakes,” Murphy said, “we’re cooked.”

So true!

Tony

Pope Francis’ Funeral: LIVE from Vatican City

Dear Commons Community.

This morning, the world said goodbye to Pope Francis in a solemn and celebratory funeral ceremony in St. Peter’s Square.  It was in some ways a simple mass and in other ways, an uplifting tribute to a Pope who touched people all over the planet.  Regardless of  your beliefs, you had to be moved by the sights, sounds, music and color of this farewell. The two-hour ceremony is worth viewing.

Grazie Francesco!

Tony

Twenty-nine scientists came together in 1928. Albert Einstein is sitting in the middle.

Dear Commons community,

In a letter to the editor of Science written by Anita Simha∗ and Gaurav Kandlikar, a plea is made that scientists during this period of erosion for research must unite and come together.  Here is the entire letter.

US federal support for science is eroding (¹), and the future of US scientific agencies and institutions is uncertain. Simultaneously, the Trump administration is scapegoating minority groups, including immigrants, trans people, people of color, and disabled people (^2-4). In the face of this federal onslaught, scientists may feel uncertain about how to respond. Speaking up may feel risky or even futile, but the risk of backlash grows with each day that silence becomes the norm (^{5, 6}). Now is the time for scientists to ask more of each other and demand more from our institutions.

Scientists have a responsibility to care for each other as members of labs, departments, unions, and professional societies. We must collectively demand that our institutions safeguard our personal and professional well-being. Institutional actions should include protecting those targeted by the Trump administration (^{4, 7}) and pushing back against unjustified funding cuts (^{8, 9}).

Even in the absence of strong institutional response, labs and departments can model leadership by making space for open discussion of federal decisions. Conversations about the material consequences of the Trump administration’s actions (^{10, 11}) can serve as valuable guides for collectively identifying suitable responses. Sharing accurate information about the limits of federal policies is also crucial. Overestimating the power and scope of federal decisions could inadvertently lead to scientists ceding unnecessary ground (⁵). For example, preemptively removing content related to diversity, equity, and inclusion from lab materials may be a freely given concession at many institutions. Frank and frequent conversation can help assess the risks and benefits of potential action.

Scientific institutions face immense federal scrutiny, but this pressure cannot serve as an excuse for silence or inaction. In the face of unreliable federal support, scientists must raise, not lower, expectations of each other and of our leaders (¹²).

Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.

∗Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

REFERENCES AND NOTES

1. J. Travis, K. Langin, J. Kaiser, M. Wadman “Mass firings decimate U.S. science agencies,” Science, 18 February 2025.
2. A. J. Connelly, “Federal government’s growing banned words list is chilling act of censorship,” PEN America, 21 March 2015.
3. M. Casey, R. Ngowi, “Transgender Americans aim to block Trump’s passport policy change,” AP News, 25 March 2025.
4. “Trump administration arrests Turkish student Rumeysa Ozturk at Tufts,” Al Jazeera, 26 March 2025.
5. C. Robin, Fear: The History of a Political Idea(Oxford Univ. Press, 2005).
6. J. McAlevey, No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age(Oxford Univ. Press, 2016).
7. V. B. Chaudhary et al., Science387, 937 (2025).
8. B. Pierson, J. Allen, “Columbia faculty groups sue Trump administration over funding cuts, academic demands,” Reuters, 25 March 2025.
9. W. F. Tate IV, Science387, 1333 (2025).
10. A. Simha, G. Kandlikar, “Caring for our colleagues amidst backlash: A conversation guide,” Zenodo (2025); https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15101435.
11. A. Aguilar et al., “How should staff and mentors discuss the recent U.S. election with youth: Leading experts have answers,” The Chronicle of Evidence-Based Mentoring; https://www.evidencebasedmentoring.org/lets-chat-politics-tips-for-staff-and-mentors-ondiscussing-the-u-s-election-with-youth/
12. J. McAlevey, B. Ostertag, Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement(Verso Books, 2012).

Dear Commons Community,

Scientists have developed a device that can translate thoughts about speech into spoken words in real time.

Although it’s still experimental, they hope the brain-computer interface could someday help give voice to those unable to speak.  As reported by The Associated Press.

A new study described testing the device on a 47-year-old woman with quadriplegia who couldn’t speak for 18 years after a stroke. Doctors implanted it in her brain during surgery as part of a clinical trial.

It “converts her intent to speak into fluent sentences,” said Gopala Anumanchipalli, a co-author of the study published Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Other brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs, for speech typically have a slight delay between thoughts of sentences and computerized verbalization. Such delays can disrupt the natural flow of conversation, potentially leading to miscommunication and frustration, researchers said.

This is “a pretty big advance in our field,” said Jonathan Brumberg of the Speech and Applied Neuroscience Lab at the University of Kansas, who was not part of the study.

A team in California recorded the woman’s brain activity using electrodes while she spoke sentences silently in her brain. The scientists used a synthesizer they built using her voice before her injury to create a speech sound that she would have spoken. They trained an AI model that translates neural activity into units of sound.

It works similarly to existing systems used to transcribe meetings or phone calls in real time, said Anumanchipalli, of the University of California, Berkeley.

The implant itself sits on the speech center of the brain so that it’s listening in, and those signals are translated to pieces of speech that make up sentences. It’s a “streaming approach,” Anumanchipalli said, with each 80-millisecond chunk of speech – about half a syllable – sent into a recorder.

“It’s not waiting for a sentence to finish,” Anumanchipalli said. “It’s processing it on the fly.”

Decoding speech that quickly has the potential to keep up with the fast pace of natural speech, said Brumberg. The use of voice samples, he added, “would be a significant advance in the naturalness of speech.”

Though the work was partially funded by the National Institutes of Health, Anumanchipalli said it wasn’t affected by recent NIH research cuts. More research is needed before the technology is ready for wide use, but with “sustained investments,” it could be available to patients within a decade, he said.

Tony

New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson.© Brad Penner-Imagn Images

Dear Commons Community,

The NBA announced last night that All-Star Knicks guard Jalen Brunson has been named the 2024-25 NBA Clutch Player of the Year.

Per the NBA, the 6-foot-1 Villanova alum averaged 5.6 points — the most in the league in clutch situations — on 51.5% shooting across 28 clutch games for New York this season. The Knicks went 17-11 in those bouts.

Clutch games are defined as games played where the score is within five points, during either the fourth quarter’s last five minutes or an overtime period.

The honor was voted upon by a global panel of 100 journalists and media experts, the NBA adds. Brunson beat out, in order, three-time MVP Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, All-NBA Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards, All-Star Hawks guard Trae Young and All-NBA Warriors guard Stephen Curry.

Brunson had a stellar year overall, beyond just the ends of games. In 65 healthy regular season contests, the 28-year-old logged averages of 26.0 points, 7.3 assists and 2.9 rebounds a night. Brunson notched a slash line of .488/.383/821. Along with center Karl-Anthony Towns, Brunson served as the offensive fulcrum of a 51-31 Knicks squad that finished the year as the Eastern Conference’s No. 3 seed.

Prior to winning the award this year, Brunson had finished among the top five in voting for Clutch Player of the Year honors in each of the prior two seasons, as well.

For those of us who follow the Knicks know that this honor is well-deserved!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Trump signed several  executive orders yesterday aimed at reforming education policy in the United States, including mandates to bring artificial intelligence into K-12 schools and to go after “woke ideology” in accreditation of universities.  As reported by USA TODAY.

The orders also take aim at foreign gifts by colleges and universities and create a White House initiative to support Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs.

Here’s a look at some of the measures the president announced at the White House.

More AI courses and certifications for high schoolers

The AI order, reported first by USA TODAY, calls for the U.S. Education and Labor Departments to create avenues for high school AI courses and certification programs and collaborate with states to promote AI in education.

Trump asked the Education Department to prioritize AI in discretionary grant programs for teacher training, the National Science Foundation to promote research on the use of AI in education, and the Labor Department to offer more AI-related apprenticeships.

Trump’s order prioritizes the integration of AI into schools to promote proficiency among youth.

“This is a big deal, because AI seems to be where it’s at,” Trump said before he signed the order in the Oval Office.

‘Woke’ accountability for accreditation programs

Another measure aims to overhaul accreditation of colleges and universities, calling on the Justice Department and the Education Department to root out “unlawful discrimination and ideological overreach,” according to a White House summary. It asks the programs to use “denial, monitoring, suspension, or termination of accreditation recognition” for poor performance or violations of federal civil rights law by accreditors.

“Accreditors have also abused their authority by imposing discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)-based standards, violating Federal law,” the White House news release says.

“This Executive Order builds on that legacy by reforming the accreditation system to prioritize student outcomes, eliminate unlawful discrimination, promote academic freedom and intellectual inquiry, and restore accountability.”

Removing guidance addressing racial bias in school discipline

A third Trump order rolls back guidance on school discipline issued by the Obama administration, in a measure Trump said will remove racial bias from schools.

In 2014, Obama-era federal officials noted that students of color and those with disabilities “are generally suspended and expelled at higher rates than their peers,” often for minor offenses, and encouraged schools to better understand why that was the case.

Some school administrators said they interpreted the Obama-era guidance as an order to soften discipline, and blamed subsequent school shootings on what they felt was an inability to remove dangerous kids.

Obama-era officials said the guidance was intended to ensure that Black students were not singled out, for instance, by disciplinary policies banning braided hair. In issuing that original guidance, Obama-era officials noted that young Black men are suspended at far higher rates than would otherwise be expected under ostensibly race-neutral policies.

A new take on disparate impact liability

A fourth mandate targets what’s known as “disparate-impact liability,” a legal theory that suggests neutral policies that lead to different outcomes for different races or sexes are actually discriminatory.

Under Obama, the two policies were intended to reduce racial bias and discrimination that exists due to systemic racism. Trump contends the polices themselves were discriminatory because they tried to police the outcome before it happened.

“Disparate-impact liability undermines civil-rights laws by mandating discrimination to achieve predetermined, race-oriented outcomes, contradicting the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection and treatment,” Trump said in his executive order. “This Executive Order restores the true promise of the Civil Rights Movement—a system that does not differentiate between Americans based on race and where success is determined by individual merit, free from discriminatory practices that prioritize group outcomes over personal achievement.”

Expanding apprenticeships and workforce development

Trump’s fifth order aims to revamp “our country’s reindustrialization needs and equip American workers to fill the growing demand for skilled trades and other occupations” and “unlock the limitless potential of the American worker.”

The Departments of Labor, Commerce and Education will have 90 days to develop a report with strategies on helping advance American workers, identifying skills and needs of U.S. employers and education programs that will target them.

The objective, according to a White House news release, is “to fully equip the American worker to produce world-class products and implement world-leading technologies.”

Revoking advisory council and setting forth new aims for Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Trump states in another order that his administration values HBCUs’ value and impact “as beacons of educational excellence and economic opportunity that serve as some of the best cultivators of tomorrow’s leaders in business, government, academia, and the military.” His mandate on these institutions is focused on expanding their reach through private-sector partnerships and professional development opportunities “to build a pipeline for students that may be interested in attending HBCUs and promote affordable degree attainment.”

The executive order revokes a Biden-era initiative at HBCUs and calls for the Environmental Protection Agency administrator to terminate the Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Serving Institutions Advisory Council.

Disclosures about foreign influence at U.S. universities

The seventh order seeks transparency through disclosures about the “purposes of foreign money flowing to American campuses.”

The president outlined in his mandate that he opened investigations into 19 campuses during his first term, which led universities to “report $6.5 billion in previously undisclosed foreign funds.” He said the Biden administration did away with these efforts at transparency.

“It is the policy of my Administration to end the secrecy surrounding foreign funds in American educational institutions, protect the marketplace of ideas from propaganda sponsored by foreign governments, and safeguard America’s students and research from foreign exploitation,” Trump says in the White House news release.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I have just finished reading, The Dictionary of Lost Words  by Pip Williams.  It is an historical novel with two plots, both relating to the development of the 1^st edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.   Plot one is the development of the dictionary itself led by chief editor Sir William Murray and his associates in the late 19th and early 20^th centuries. The second and more provocative fictional plot focuses on a character, Esme, who spends her childhood in Oxford in the Scriptorium with her father, Da, who is one of Murray’s associates who took on the painstakingly, decades-long task of assembling the dictionary.  As reviewed by Publishers Weekly, The Dictionary of Lost Dictionary is an exuberant story of the “daughter of a lexigrapher who devotes her life to an alternate dictionary and a feminist take on language that will move readers.  The author, Pip Williams, has done a masterful job in telling the story of The Dictionary of Lost Words.”

Anyone interested in words and how they shape our thoughts and feelings will love this book.

Below is a review of The Dictionary of Lost Words that appeared in reddit.

Tony

————-

reddit

Book Review – Dictionary of Lost Words

Pip Williams

Historical Fiction

One of the best books i ever read, and i am not even a fan of historical fictions!

I never even paused for a moment before picking up a dictionary and finding words and their meanings, dictionary just existed for me – I did not think about how much work went into creating one! how many people were involved, what was the process, and how the words were collected or discarded.

Sir James Murray began compiling the dictionary in 1879. It was unfinished at his death in 1915 and completed by his fellow editors in 1928. The second edition appeared in 1989; the third edition is currently being worked upon.

Dictionary of Lost words is brilliant, well researched, detailed and refreshing, and never once boring. The first few chapters have my heart – the journey of young Esme has such innocence, that it’s reads like a song!

The story starts and revolves around the first-ever edition of the Oxford English Dictionary and Esme whose life starts weaves itself around that dictionary – the words that esteemed men of the Dictionary committee chose, selected, and finalized to be a part of the mega mission – of course a few women were involved too but they were not the decision-makers. This story is deep-rooted in reality, most characters and most accounts are real except for a few main ones – the protagonists who make this history of dictionary, the suffragette movement, and WW1 lyrical, heart-wrenching, moving, warm, beautiful, and breathtaking. Yes, so many adjectives and all well deserved.

The blurb states that six years old Esme, daughter of a lexicographer, lives her life in the womb of scriptorium – the place where the dictionary starts its journey, and through the years, she starts rescuing some words, words that were either not important enough or had not been ever written down – each word in the dictionary had to have a textual history – but that meant that words which were not ever written down, words of the uneducated, of tradespeople, of women, were lost. This became Esme’s project, those Lost Words.

She started rescuing words from the scriptorium, from the local market, from an old prostitute, from women she met on her journey of life, from people whose words were not good enough to be part of the prestigious books, words that were deemed obscene and vulgar by the men of the dictionary.

This is also a tale of extraordinary friendships born out of the quest for those lost words, this is the story of Lizzie Lester the bondsmaid (an important word in the book), of Mabel the market crone, of Tilda, of women of suffragette movements, of Ditte, of Beth, of daughters of Dr Murray who contributed their lives to the mission of dictionary but were lost in the pages of history because they were not men, they existed in real life. The book talks about those historical women who were as much a part of the history of the dictionary but were forgotten, lack of representation, and the major flaw in the system of dictionary creation.

If you are a word lover, linguist, lexicographer, or grammarian, this is the novel you’ve been waiting for without even realizing it. The Dictionary of Lost Words is a delightful, lyrical (I know I have used the word a few times now, but this is the most suited word that describes the novel), and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words and the power of language to shape the world.

The book burns slowly, takes its own time in shaping up, in becoming a captivating fictional paean to the real women whose work on the Oxford English Dictionary went largely unheralded – as rightfully said by the NYT. As the author said, the dictionary, just like the English Language, is a work in progress.

My advice is, do not gobble the book, drink it like sips of wine, a little at a time, savor it, and let it sink in, it is not just a story – it needs time to get under your skin and to make you think.

𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐪𝐮𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬:

‘…𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑡𝑜𝑜𝑙𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛.’

‘𝐼 𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑛, 𝐼 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝐼 𝑠𝑒𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑠. 𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐼 𝑑𝑜 𝑔𝑒𝑡𝑠 𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝑜𝑟 𝑑𝑖𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑟 𝑏𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑑 – 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑓 𝐼’𝑣𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙.’

𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑤𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑.

‘𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠…’

𝐴 𝑣𝑢𝑙𝑔𝑎𝑟 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑, 𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑒𝑛𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑣𝑖𝑔𝑜𝑟, 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑓𝑎𝑟 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡.

‘𝑆𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑎 𝑝𝑎𝑔𝑒, 𝑑𝑜𝑛’𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘?’ 𝑠ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑, 𝑡𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑠ℎ 𝑎𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑚𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑. ‘𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑏𝑢𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑠, 𝑓𝑢𝑙𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑏𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡ℎ 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑝 𝑒𝑑𝑔𝑒 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑙𝑖𝑝. 𝐼𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡.’

Bill Owens

Dear Commons Community,

The executive producer of CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens, said he will leave his job, citing an increasing lack of ability “to make independent decisions based on what was right for ’60 Minutes,’ right for the audience” as parent company Paramount Global tries to move past a lawsuit filed against CBS News by President Donald Trump and secure its future in a merger with Skydance Media.  As reported by Variety.

“Over the past months, it has also become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it,” Owens told staffers in a memo Tuesday, adding: “So, having defended this show — and what we stand for — from every angle, over time with everything I could,  I am stepping aside so the show can move forward.” Owens made his announcement during an emotional Tuesday meeting with “60 Minutes” staffers, including Scott Pelley, according to a person familiar with the matter, and received a standing ovation from staff.

One “60 Minutes” staffer suggested personnel ascribed Owens’ exit to Paramount’s corporate desires. “Bill Owens cares deeply about upholding the quality and independence of ’60 Minutes,’ as all of us who work on this legendary broadcast do,” this person says. “It’s quite obvious now that sentiment is not shared by those at the top of the corporation eager to get a deal done.”

Tanya Simon will serve as the program’s interim leader, and is seen as a likely candidate to replace Owens at the helm, according to two people familiar with the matter. Simon was named executive editor of the program in 2019 and has been with CBS News since 1996. If named to the role permanently, she would be the first woman to lead the show in its many decades on air. She is the daughter of Bob Simon, a former “60 Minutes” correspondent. The show is not expected to change any of its current story plans, this person says.

CBS is “committed to ’60 Minutes’ and to ensuring that the mission and the work remain our priority,” said Wendy McMahon, the executive who oversees CBS News, and the company’s local station and syndication business, in a memo.  “We have already begun conversations with correspondents and senior leaders, and those will continue in the days and weeks ahead.”

Paramount Global declined to comment.

But the company’s view of “60 Minutes” as a potential distraction from its deal plans had become clear. In January, Paramount installed Susan Zirinsky, a former CBS News president, as a sort of “executive editor” assigned to deal with standards and practices after CBS News grappled not only with the aforementioned lawsuit, but also other controversies that included “60 Minutes” and “CBS Mornings.” After some time, it had become more clear that Owens and “60 Minutes” were being handled differently than in the past, even though the program has its own executives assigned to navigate journalism issues and legal practices.

Owens’ decision to leave comes as executives at Paramount, including controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, have continued to express interest in settling a lawsuit filed by Trump in federal court in the Northern District of Texas in November, alleging that “60 Minutes” tried to mislead voters by airing two different edits of remarks made in an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, then Trump’s rival for the White House. CBS sought to have the case thrown out, and many legal experts have expressed the notion that the suit’s legal standing is flimsy.

His departure is likely to be seen as a stain on Paramount’s management of the program, which is in the midst of its 57th season.

Broadcast-news divisions generate much of the controversy around media conglomerates such as Paramount, Comcast, and Disney, but in most cases, only a small portion of the profits. To be sure, “60 Minutes” has run headlong into the economics of its corporate owners in the past. In 1995, CBS forced the newsmagazine, then run by founder Don Hewitt, to hold a report alleging that tobacco giant Brown & Williamson had hidden the health risks inherent in its cigarettes. At the time, some CBS executives had an interest in avoiding legal entanglements with that company. In the end, The Wall Street Journal beat “60 Minutes” to the story, and CBS News was accused by The New York Times of betraying the legacy of one of its best-known journalists, Edward R. Murrow. And the show has created plenty of controversy in the past, sometimes with unforced errors. In 2013, then-correspondent Lara Logan took a leave of absence from the show after a flawed report on Benghazi was found to have failed to substantiate some of the assertions of one of its key sources.

Other sizable media companies have kowtowed to Trump in a bid to make legal pressures vanish. Disney late last year agreed to pay a settlement of $15 million to Donald Trump’s presidential library after anchor George Stephanopoulos asserted incorrectly in March of 2024 on air that Trump had been found liable in a court case for raping writer E. Jean Carroll.

Owens has in recent weeks urged the program’s popular correspondents to focus on their jobs, but according to three people familiar with the matter, there have been discussions among staffers about how to protest any perception that Paramount would actively undermine the program, one of the jewels of TV journalism, by settling a legal matter viewed by many experts as flimsy at best. Trump and Paramount had already engaged a mediator to help settle the matter, having been unable to do so on their own.

Owens had been firm in recent weeks that “60 Minutes” should not be forced to apologize for the use of different edits of interview last year of former Vice President Kamala Harris in the days ahead of the 2024 election. One edit, shown during a short promo on CBS’ “Face The Nation,” and one that aired on the newsmagazine itself, which provided different portions of the then-Democratic candidate’s response, were used to accuse CBS News of deceptive practices.

His departure could upset other CBS News endeavors. Owens was also overseeing a massive effort to overhaul “CBS Evening News,” and had put in place a new format that relies less on the breaking stories of the day and more feature stories and enterprise news that examines reaction to Washington policy from across the nation. The show has two anchors, rather than the usual single host, and has grappled with ratings challenges since its debut earlier this year.

Owens took the reins at “60 Minutes” in 2019, following the departure of previous head Jeff Fager. During his time at the helm, he has tested an array of new ways to make the program relevant to younger viewers, including a version of the newsmagazine for streaming outlets including Paramount+ and the now-defunct Quibi. The show recently expanded its foray into podcasts and a free ad-supported streaming channel as well.

 Good luck to Mr. Owens!

Tony