• Join Puck

    Directly Supporting Authors

    A new economic model in which writers are also partners in the business.

    Personalized Subscriptions

    Customize your settings to receive the newsletters you want from the authors you follow.

    Stay in the Know

    Connect directly with Puck talent through email and exclusive events.

  • What is puck? Newsletters Authors Podcasts Events Gift Puck Careers

CBS News’s Blue Period

Amid the depressing Shari-Trump ‘60 Minutes’ settlement chatter, the newly reformatted and spruced-up ‘CBS Evening News’ seems to be a quickly metastasizing ratings and formatting disaster—and the latest reminder that few things unite a newsroom quite like one of their boss’s public shortcomings.

bill owens
Yes, Owens’ new format innovation seems like a dud, but one hopes that it won’t prevent others from trying things out, too. Photo: Vaughn Ridley/Sportsfile for Collision/Getty Images
Dylan Byers
February 13, 2025

On Tuesday, shortly after Elon Musk’s extraordinary press avail in the Oval Office—the unfounded declarations about fraud and corruption; the bizarro appearance of his 4-year-old son, X Æ A-Xii (X for short); a bemused Trump looking on—the retired CBS News White House correspondent Peter Maer sought to contextualize the gravity of the moment in a Facebook post. “In my years on the White House beat from Presidents Carter to Obama,” he wrote, “I never witnessed a scene like the disgusting display that occurred in the Oval Office today.”