The show has been praised for landmark journalism and received many awards. However, it has also become embroiled in some controversy, including (in order of appearance):
Audi unintended acceleration On November 23, 1986,
60 Minutes aired a segment
greenlit by Hewitt, concerning the
Audi 5000 automobile, a popular
German luxury car. The story covered a supposed problem of "unintended acceleration" when the brake pedal was pushed, with emotional interviews with six people who sued
Audi (unsuccessfully) after they crashed their cars, including one woman whose six-year-old son had been killed. In the
60 Minutes segment footage was shown of an
Audi 5000 with the accelerator "moving down on its own", accelerating the car. It later emerged that an expert witness employed by one of the plaintiffs modified the accelerator with a concealed device, causing the "unintended acceleration". Independent investigators concluded that this "unintended acceleration" was most likely due to driver error, where the driver let their foot slip off the brake and onto the accelerator. Tests by
Audi and independent journalists showed that even with the
throttle wide open, the car would simply stall if the brakes were actually being used. The incident devastated Audi sales in the United States, which did not rebound for 15 years. The initial incidents which prompted the report were found by the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and
Transport Canada to have been attributable to operator error, where car owners had depressed the accelerator pedal instead of the brake pedal. CBS issued a partial retraction, without acknowledging the test results of involved government agencies. Years later,
Dateline NBC, a rival to
60 Minutes, was found guilty of similar tactics regarding the fuel tank integrity of
General Motors pickup trucks.
Jeep rollovers A segment aired in December, 1980, concerning the alleged
Jeep CJ-5 high rollover risk as demonstrated in
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety testing. The demonstration was a
Jeep rolling over during an extreme turn at 20 mph (32 km/h), something that would not cause other cars to roll over. It was deemed by
60 Minutes reporters as the "most dangerous thing on four wheels". After the show aired, many people were concerned about the safety of the vehicle, and following sales plummeted. This tarnished the reputation of the
Jeep CJ; the model was discontinued in 1986. Years after the incident occurred, it was found that the
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety had attempted to roll the car 435 times, only having 8 rollovers. The show had also failed to mention/show that there were weights hanging on spots of the vehicle that had caused the vehicle to have a higher rollover risk.
Alar In February 1989,
60 Minutes aired a report by the
Natural Resources Defense Council claiming that the use of
daminozide (Alar) on
apples presented an unacceptably high health risk to consumers. Apple sales dropped and CBS was sued unsuccessfully by apple growers. Alar was subsequently banned for use on food crops in the U.S. by the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Werner Erhard On March 3, 1991,
60 Minutes broadcast "
Werner Erhard," which dealt with controversies involving Erhard's personal and business life. A year after the
60 Minutes piece aired, Erhard filed a lawsuit against CBS, claiming that the broadcast contained several "false, misleading and defamatory" statements about him. One month after filing the lawsuit, Erhard filed for dismissal. Erhard later told
Larry King in an interview that he dropped the suit after receiving legal advice telling him that in order to win it, he had to prove not only that CBS knew the allegations were false but also that CBS acted with
malice. After numerous independent journalists exposed untruths and factual inaccuracies in the story the segment was removed by CBS from its archives, with a disclaimer: "This segment has been deleted at the request of CBS News for legal or
copyright reasons."
Brown & Williamson In 1995, former
Brown & Williamson Vice President for Research and Development
Jeffrey Wigand provided information to
60 Minutes producer
Lowell Bergman pertaining to B&W having systematically hidden the health risks of their cigarettes . Furthermore, it was alleged that B&W had introduced foreign agents (such as
fiberglass and
ammonia) with the intent of enhancing the effect of
nicotine. Bergman began to produce a piece based upon the information, but ran into opposition from Don Hewitt who, along with CBS lawyers, feared a billion-dollar lawsuit from Brown and Williamson for
tortious interference for encouraging Wigand to violate his
non-disclosure agreement. A number of people at CBS would benefit from a sale of CBS to
Westinghouse Electric Corporation, including the head of CBS lawyers and CBS News. Also, because of the interview, the son of CBS President
Laurence Tisch (who also controlled
Lorillard Tobacco) was among the people from the
big tobacco companies at risk of being caught having committed perjury. Due to Hewitt's hesitation,
The Wall Street Journal instead broke Wigand's story. The
60 Minutes piece was eventually aired with substantially altered content and minus some of the most damning evidence against B&W. The
exposé of the incident was published in an article in
Vanity Fair by
Marie Brenner, entitled "The Man Who Knew Too Much".
The New York Times wrote that "the traditions of
Edward R. Murrow and '60 Minutes' itself were diluted in the process," though the newspaper revised the quote slightly, suggesting that
60 Minutes and CBS had "betrayed the legacy of Edward R. Murrow". The incident was turned into a seven-times
Oscar-nominated feature film entitled
The Insider, directed by
Michael Mann and starring
Russell Crowe as Wigand,
Al Pacino as Bergman, and
Christopher Plummer as Mike Wallace. Wallace denounced the portrayal of him as inaccurate to his stance on the issue.
U.S. Customs Service In 1997,
60 Minutes alleged that agents of the
U.S. Customs Service ignored drug trafficking across the
Mexico–United States border at
San Diego. The only evidence was a memorandum apparently written by Rudy Camacho, who was the head of the San Diego branch office. Based on this memo, CBS alleged that Camacho had allowed trucks belonging to a particular firm to cross the border unimpeded. Mike Horner, a former Customs Service employee, had passed the memos on to
60 Minutes, and even provided a copy with an official stamp. Camacho was not consulted about the piece, and his career was devastated in the immediate term as his own department placed suspicion on him. In the end, it turned out that Horner had forged the documents as an act of revenge for his treatment within the Customs Service. Camacho sued CBS and settled for an undisclosed amount of money in damages.
60 Minutes founder
Don Hewitt was forced to issue an on-air retraction.
Kennewick Man A legal battle between archaeologists and the
Umatilla tribe over the remains of a skeleton, nicknamed
Kennewick Man, was reported by
60 Minutes on October 25, 1998, to which the Umatilla tribe reacted negatively. The tribe considered the segment heavily biased in favor of the scientists, cutting out important arguments, such as explanations of the
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The report focused heavily on the racial politics of the controversy and also added inflammatory arguments, such as questioning the legitimacy of
Native American sovereignty—much of the racial focus of the segment was later reported to have been either unfounded and/or misinterpreted.
Timothy McVeigh On March 12, 2000,
60 Minutes aired an interview with
Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. At the time, McVeigh had already been convicted and sentenced to death for the bombing of the
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in April 1995, and the subsequent deaths of 168 people. On the program, McVeigh was given the opportunity to vent against the government. Following the program, a federal policy called the Special Confinement Unit Media Policy was enacted prohibiting face-to-face interviews with
death row inmates. A federal inmate challenged the policy in
Hammer v. Ashcroft, under which the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld the prison policy. In March 2010, the
United States Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in the case, and the policy limiting media access to death row inmates remains in place. CBS refuses to show the entire interview, and has stated no reasons.
Killian documents controversy The Killian documents controversy were 6 documents critical of
George W. Bush's service in the
Texas Air National Guard from 1972-73. Four of these documents were presented as authentic in a
60 Minutes II episode aired on September 8, 2004, less than two months before the
2004 presidential election, but it was later found that CBS had failed to authenticate the documents. Subsequently, several typewriter and typography experts concluded the documents are forgeries, as have some media sources. No forensic document examiners or typography experts authenticated the documents, which may not be possible without original documents. The provider of the documents, Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, claimed to have burned the originals after faxing copies to CBS. The incident was dramatized for the feature-length film,
Truth.
"The Internet Is Infected" episode and the false hacker photo On March 29, 2009, a segment titled "The Internet Is Infected" aired on
60 Minutes, which featured an interview with Don Jackson, a data protection professional for
SecureWorks. Jackson himself declared in the program that "a part of [his] job is to know the enemy". However, during the interview, Jackson showed a photo of Finnish upper-level comprehensive school pupils and misidentified them as Russian hackers. In the photo, one of the children wears a jacket with the coat of arms of Finland on it. Another one wears a cap which clearly has the logo of
Karjala, a Finnish brand of beer, on it. The principal of the school in
Taivalkoski confirmed that the photo was taken at the school about five years before the program was broadcast. The photo's exact origins are unknown, but it is widely known in Finland, having been originally posted to the Finnish social networking site IRC-Galleria in the early 2000s. It spread all over Finnish internet communities, and even originated a couple of patriotically titled (but intentionally misspelled) mock sites.
60 Minutes later issued a correction and on-air apology.
Benghazi report After the
2012 Benghazi attack,
60 Minutes aired a report by correspondent
Lara Logan on October 27, 2013, in which British military contractor Dylan Davies, identified by CBS under the pseudonym "Morgan Jones", described racing to the Benghazi compound several hours after the main assault was over, scaling a 12-foot wall and knocking out a lone fighter with the butt of a rifle. He also claimed to have visited a Benghazi hospital earlier that night where he saw Ambassador
Christopher Stevens' body. In the days following the report, Davies' personal actions were challenged. The FBI, which had interviewed Davies several times and considered him a credible source, said the account Davies had given them was different from what he told
60 Minutes. Davies stood by his story, but the inconsistency ultimately prompted
60 Minutes to conclude it was a mistake to include Davies in their report. The show issued a correction. After the correction, a journalistic review was conducted by Al Ortiz, CBS News' executive director of standards and practices. Ortiz determined that red flags about Davies' account were missed. Davies had told the program and written in his book that he told an alternative version of his actions to his employer, who he said had demanded that he stay inside his Benghazi villa as the attack unfolded. That alternative version was shared with U.S. authorities; 60 Minutes was unable to prove the story Davies had told them was true. Davies' book,
The Embassy House, was published two days after the
60 Minutes report, by Threshold Editions, part of the Simon and Schuster unit of CBS. It was pulled from shelves once
60 Minutes issued its correction. On November 26, 2013, Logan was forced to take a leave of absence due to the errors in the Benghazi report.
NSA report On December 15, 2013,
60 Minutes aired a report on the workings of the
National Security Agency (NSA) that was widely criticized as misleading and a biased "puff piece". Complaints included that the Agency's perspective was presented unchallenged and that privacy campaigners were not invited to present the counter-arguments to the Agency's claims. CBS released a statement explaining that the sound was the result of an audio editing error, and subsequently removed the sound from the online version of the piece. However, several news outlets, as well as Jalopnik itself, expressed doubt over the authenticity of this explanation, noting the similar scandal involving
Tesla Motors and the
New York Times in 2013.
Sexual harassment After the resignation of CBS news head
Les Moonves, an investigation into sexual harassment at CBS, including
60 Minutes, uncovered evidence of long-running sexual harassment issues stemming from behavior of producers
Jeff Fager and
Don Hewitt.
Florida COVID-19 vaccine rollout In April 2021, Sharyn Alfonsi's story in
60 Minutes on
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the state's
COVID-19 vaccine rollout faced criticism for suggesting that a donation by the supermarket chain
Publix to DeSantis' re-election campaign influenced Florida's partnership with Publix stores for
vaccine distribution. Subsequently,
Palm Beach County Mayor
Dave Kerner accused
60 Minutes of reporting "intentionally false" information, A spokesperson for
60 Minutes defended the story for having included DeSantis' response to the accusation.
Facial recognition report On May 16, 2021,
Anderson Cooper's story in
60 Minutes on the flaws in facial recognition technology used by the police resulting in incorrect identification of people of color received backlash for denying credit to the black female researchers who pioneered the field. The segment was criticized by the
Algorithmic Justice League for "deliberately excluding the groundbreaking and award-winning work of prominent black women AI researchers
Joy Buolamwini,
Dr. Timnit Gebru, and
Inioluwa Deborah Raji". The segment was called out for its hypocrisy for failing to credit black women for their pioneering work in a segment highlighting how facial recognition software often leaves out black, Asian, and female faces. CBS later issued a statement explaining that these researchers were not included due to time restrictions of the segment.
Deceptive editing lawsuit On December 7, 2024,
Donald Trump filed a $20 billion lawsuit against CBS and its parent company,
Paramount Global, alleging that the network deceptively edited an interview with Vice President
Kamala Harris on
60 Minutes to sway public opinion in her favor. The lawsuit, submitted in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, claims that the editing distorted Harris's response regarding Middle East policy. Both parties agreed to enter mediation, coinciding with a
planned $8 billion merger between Paramount and Skydance, which requires approval from the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Within Paramount, there was reportedly internal disagreement over whether to settle the dispute, as the producers of
60 Minutes maintained their conduct was appropriate and opposed offering an apology. In early April 2025, Trump expressed his "hope" that the FCC would punish CBS for running on
60 Minutes stories on Ukraine and Greenland that he disapproved of. Trump filed a lawsuit in Texas accusing CBS of violating the state's Deceptive Trade Practices Act, a consumer protection law. On April 22, 2025, Bill Owens resigned as the show's executive producer, telling staff he believed he no longer had journalistic independence. He said in a memo that the show would continue to cover the
second Trump administration the same way it has covered others. Some said that if the lawsuit by Trump is settled, it would "continue a trend" of institutions giving "in to his demands to avoid punishments such as losing federal funding or access to federal buildings." Others reported that while the show's staff was "shaken" by the departure of Owens, no one else was expected to resign because it "would be seen as giving in to Trump," with executive editor
Tanya Simon, daughter of
Bob Simon, beginning to run the show "on an interim basis," following the resignation of Owens. In the "Last Minute" segment of the show on April 27, 2025,
Scott Pelley praised Owens for ensuring that the types of controversial stories the show had covered since its creation, most recently the
Gaza war and the Trump administration, were covered fairly. However, he claimed that recent changes, namely increased supervision—but not censorship—of the show's content by Paramount due to its desire to complete their merger, had led Owens to feel that he "lost the independence that honest journalism requires." Pelley concluded this public rebuke of the network's owner by stating that Owens proved to be the "right person" leading the show "all along." On May 19, 2025, CBS News chief executive
Wendy McMahon followed Bill Owens in resigning. McMahon explained in a memo to staff, “The past few months have been challenging. It’s become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward.” On July 2, 2025, Paramount agreed to a $16 million settlement. As part of the deal, the company did not apologize or admit wrongdoing, agreed to release full transcripts of interviews with future U.S. presidential candidates after they air, and stated that the funds will go to
Trump's future presidential library. On the July 14, 2025, episode of CBS's late-night talk show
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, host
Stephen Colbert called the settlement a "big fat
bribe". Three days later, CBS announced that it would not renew Colbert's contract with the network, and that it would end
the Late Show franchise at the conclusion of the 2025–26 television season. Although CBS claimed that the decision to end the show was "purely" financial, it was suspected that the decision may have been politically-motivated due to Colbert's comments and regular history of satirizing the Trump administration.
Postponed CECOT story On December 21, 2025, CBS News abruptly pulled a planned segment on El Salvador's
Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) and President Trump's
deportation of Venezuelan migrants from that night's episode, and announced that it would be postponed to a future date. Correspondent
Sharyn Alfonsi accused
Bari Weiss—who had recently been named editor-in-chief of CBS News—of intervening for political reasons, despite the segment having been cleared by the network's staff. On December 22, Canadian broadcaster
Global accidentally made the original cut of the episode containing the CECOT story available on its
video on demand platform, causing it to be widely disseminated online. Weiss claimed that the story "was not ready" for broadcast; sources within CBS News told outlets including the
New York Times that two days before the anticipated broadcast, Weiss had asked the producers to arrange an interview with Trump administration operative
Stephen Miller, who architected the deportation policy, or an administration operative of similar rank. Alfonsi stated in a email memorandum to colleagues that the production team did request comments and interviews from White House officials, the
State Department, and the
Department of Homeland Security, which were all refused. On January 18, 2026, the segment aired alongside a piece on the relations between Minneapolis citizens and ICE officers after the
death of Renée Good. ==Spin-offs==