Independent Media

Balanced reporting in visuals

The top producer of 60 Minutes, the flagship news show of CBS for decades, has quit, citing a loss of journalistic independence. Bill Owens is only the third person to head 60 Minutes over the course of the news magazine’s 57 years on air. He told his staff, “over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for ‘60 Minutes,’ right for the audience.” The show had been under pressure from Trump and was sued by him for $10 billion, accusing the program of “unlawful and illegal behavior,” and its own corporate ownership at Paramount, the parent company of CBS News. CBS has a strong reputation of being an independent news organization, starting with Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite.

I worked for the network from 2016-2020 as the resident cartoonist on the CBS This Morning, until network head Les Moonves and star Charlie Rose were accused of sexual harrassment… and then the pandemic hit. So many things changed then for many people, myself included.

My work with CBS began in 2016, when I convinced the network to hire me to live-draw the Democratic National Convention, which was a thrill. I love those things and had always wanted to go. Here are just two drawings, I have tons.

Then they hired me on a freelance basis in NYC. I would go into the morning show and draw the guests, the hosts and become a link to their social media accounts.

It was back when Twitter was hot, and we really made great use of social media to tell stories about the news and personalities. I was often sent on assignment, to cover the first Trump inauguration, to a press conference in Washington, DC, debates, to Yankee Stadium, to the first Women’s March, a Halloween dog parade, to the Grammys and Oscars. My wonderful producer, Kevin Prince, and I produced personal interest stories, videos with drawing, and animations, as well as the news. I did find that during my time at CBS, while it was never stated, I felt that I needed to keep my strong opinions more under wraps, to try to be more balanced in how I reported in visuals. It was good practice, to be honest.

I had such a great time.

Here are a few more drawings, but I have many more from all the years live drawing for them.

Although I tried, I was never allowed into the 60 Minutes studio to live draw, I would have found that fascinating. But I did get to go draw from the Yankees duggout in the Bronx!

Live-drawing for a news organization is not something anyone had done quite like this before, to my knowledge. I use my iPad or iPhone to record in drawings on an app in real time, taking advantage of the fast pace of the news cycle, recording quickly what I observed. While social media has changed since I was at CBS, there still are opportunities to draw the news in this fashion. I went to both Trump trials in Manhattan last year to draw them. I keep looking for opportunities to live-draw the news!

Thanks for going down memory lane with me. The CBS story just reminded me of my time there, and I thought perhaps some of you may not know my work there.

The news is momentarily a little quiet. Maybe too quiet, if you ask me.

Thanks for being here!!