Indeed, some people view the 60 Minutes report on Gaza as the catalyst for Shari’s first encroachment on Owens’ independence. Ahead of that broadcast, CBS C.E.O. George Cheeks had sent an email to McMahon asking if there was any reason to be concerned about the Gaza package. McMahon told Cheeks that she had checked with Owens and confirmed that there was no cause for concern—adding that, if anything, the segment was too pro-Israel. Once the broadcast aired, however, Shari was pissed—doubly furious at Owens and McMahon for the package, which she viewed as antisemitic, and their assurances that it would be fair to Israel. (You can read the transcript and judge for yourself.) In the wake of that broadcast, Shari pushed to have former CBS News president Susan Zirinsky immediately reinstalled as interim executive editor overseeing standards, with an express mandate to review Middle East coverage. Cheeks announced Zirinsky’s appointment the very next day. From the beginning, Owens viewed Zirinsky’s appointment as an imposition—not because he objected to standards review, per se, but because of Zirinsky’s close ties to Shari. In a move to defuse some of the tension, Zirinsky appointed CBS News veteran Al Ortiz to assist with standards oversight and effectively act as an intermediary between her and Owens. But many inside CBS News continued to suspect that Zirinsky might be serving as a back channel to Shari. In mid-April, Shari’s anxieties around 60 Minutes turned squarely toward her preoccupation with the president and the Skydance deal. After Trump put 60 Minutes on blast over the Ukraine and Greenland packages, and urged Carr to “impose the maximum fines and punishment,” multiple people close to the situation told me that Shari called Cheeks to express her concerns about 60 Minutes leaving her vulnerable to F.C.C. scrutiny. In the process, she told Cheeks she wanted to know what else she could expect from 60 Minutes while she was trying to settle Trump’s lawsuit and win F.C.C. approval for the deal. Inside 60 Minutes, news of her desire for greater oversight, reported here and elsewhere, struck many as a violation of the show’s long-cherished editorial independence—not just from its parent company, but even from the rest of CBS News. Regardless, Shari’s attempts to influence 60 Minutes coverage went beyond that. According to those sources with direct knowledge of the matter, Shari also asked Cheeks if it would be possible to delay sensitive stories about Trump or his policies until after she had closed the Skydance deal. Representatives for Shari and Cheeks declined to comment on the nature of those discussions, and representatives for Paramount and CBS News declined to comment for this story. The current deadline for the Paramount-Skydance deal is July 6. There is no evidence that Shari’s increased oversight of 60 Minutes has forced the show to alter its programming, nor that Cheeks ever sought to execute her request. Notably, Cheeks, who was aptly described to me as a relational executive, has managed to keep a low profile amid this multifront shitstorm despite being right in the middle of it. Of course, he’s got his own ambitions. His current boss is selling; his future bosses, David Ellison and incoming Paramount president Jeff Shell, appear eager to close; and he is hoping to remain in the picture—especially while his co-C.E.O. Chris McCarthy is putting Taylor Sheridan to work publicly singing his praises in Bloomberg. And in an orchestra where there is plenty of blame to go around, it would sure seem easier to finger Wendy and Bill. Indeed, Cheeks may be the only unlikely winner in this totally appalling yet somehow fitting late-stage Paramount saga. On the one hand, Shari has behaved ineptly and avariciously. On the other hand, the blockage of a deal would be a truly existential nightmare, leading to excessive layoffs, litigation, presumed market pressures, and worse—probably a full-scale dismembering by a firm like Apollo. The Redstones, who are already leveraged, would face fewer and worse options. Some close to the deal have decided to rationalize Shari’s impending settlement by hoping that Ellison and Shell will be even more incentivized to preserve 60 Minutes, a righting of wrongs that one source likened to the Judaic concept of tikkun olam. In any event, the next few weeks should be interesting. As Paramount’s mediation gets underway, I’m told that Ellison and Skydance have finally been able to engage Carr and the F.C.C. to walk them through their rationale for the deal. (As my colleague Eriq Gardner recently reported, Carr has been an evasive date.) Meanwhile, there are three weeks left in the current 60 Minutes season. That’s three more Sundays in which Bill and Wendy and the team at 60 will have the opportunity to test their limits with Trump-related segments—including a forthcoming package on the president’s conflicts with major law firms, as the Times reported this week—and three more Sundays in which Shari and David will presumably be mainlining beta blockers. You have to wonder what Shari’s father, Sumner, would have made of all this, and whether or not he’d be surprised.