Anderson Cooper is ending his time at 60 Minutes.
The NCS anchor, who has been a correspondent on the CBS newsmagazine for almost twenty years, opted to not renew his contract with 60 Minutes, sources say. Cooper’s ultimate section for the present, an interview with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, aired Sunday.
Cooper stays with NCS, the place he anchors the nightly Anderson Cooper 360 and a weekly newsmagazine, The Whole Story. He additionally hosts a podcast and streaming present referred to as All There Is. His work for 60 Minutes got here as a part of an settlement between NCS, his full-time employer, and CBS.
The media e-newsletter Breaker first reported Cooper’s departure.
“Being a correspondent at 60 Minutes has been one of the great honors of my career,” Cooper mentioned in a press release. “I got to tell amazing stories, and work with some of the best producers, editors, and camera crews in the business. For nearly twenty years, I’ve been able to balance my jobs at NCS and CBS, but I have little kids now and I want to spend as much time with them as possible, while they still want to spend time with me.”
Cooper’s departure marks the primary large on-air change for 60 Minutes underneath the CBS News management of editor-in-chief Bari Weiss. The long-running program got here underneath intense scrutiny in December when Weiss made an Eleventh-hour choice to pull a story centered on El Salvador’s infamous CECOT jail, the place the Trump administration has despatched a variety of deportees.
Weiss defended the choice, saying the story from correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi was “not ready,” partly as a result of it had no on-the-record response from the White House (the story famous 60 Minutes made a number of makes an attempt to safe remark). The piece eventually ran on Jan. 18.
Cooper started his tenure on 60 Minutes throughout the 2006-07 season. His work with the newsmagazine received two News and Documentary Emmys in 2017, for the segments “The Music of Zomba Prison” (finest characteristic story in a newsmagazine) and “Little Jazz Man” (finest arts, tradition and leisure report).