TV news can help a dozen soundbites from politicians go viral on any day. One recent social-media uproar stirred by CBS News came not from flagship programs like “CBS Mornings” or “CBS Evening News,” but from “Red & Blue,” a program available only through streaming.
On a recent Wednesday, CBS News political correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns nabbed an interview with Senator Tim Scott, the Republican presidential hopeful, and made sure to ask him his stance on federal limits on when women might be able to terminate a pregnancy. Scott gave all kinds of answers, but none of them directly answered her questions. The exchange made news — even though it debuted first in a place where, in another era, it might have gotten lost.
Correspondents would like to do more of these kinds of interviews, says Huey-Burns. “He hadn’t defended a position before, so we saw that as an opportunity. Once people are out on the trail and talking to voters and laying out their campaign, it’s a fair question.”
More news aficionados may see CBS break such information online soon. The Paramount Global news outlet will on May 1 introduce “America Decides,” a weekday panel program featuring a phalanx of correspondents from its Washington bureau. The move is part of a bid to assert the organization as the nation prepares for the 2024 election cycle to start heating up with more candidates declaring their intentions to run and a wave later this year of primary debates. Already, the Republican National Committee has announced its first primary debate among candidates will take place in Milwaukee in August and will be hosted by Fox News.
“America Decides” debuts officially on May 1 and will stream at 5 p.m. eastern Monday through Thursday on CBS News streaming properties, and re-airs at 6 p.m. Huey-Burns, Robert Costa, Major Garrett, Ed O’Keefe, Nikole Killion, Scott MacFarlane, Weijia Jiang, and Nancy Cordes will all take part, with one member of the group serving as host each day. It follows the debut of a 7 p.m. analytical newscast led by John Dickerson. “’America Decides’ paired with ‘CBS News Prime Time with John Dickerson’ creates a powerful evening lineup on the stream for news today,” says Neeraj Khemlani, co-president of CBS News and Stations, in a memo to staffers,
This kind of program is more necessary in an era when different pieces of news break across the day, says Anthony Galloway, senior vice president of CBS News Streaming. “There was a time when Washington DC bureau reporters might solely have been focused on the newscast at 6:30 p.m.. and the morning news. You might hold your scoops, you might hold your stories, for that,” he says, “Now, if you have a scoop and you want to break it, you can break it on ‘America Decides’ at 5, and you don’t have to wait until 6:30 or the next morning.”
More people are getting their news from streaming-video sources. A 2022 survey from Pew Research Center found that about 53% of Americans prefer to get their news via a digital device, compared to 33$% for TV and just 5% for print. With that in mind, CBS News and other outlets have begun to roll out more sophisticated programming for the broadband crowd.
NBC features “Meet The Press” host Chuck Todd in “Meet The Press Daily” on the NBC News Now streaming service, and recently expanded the hours of Hallie Jackson, its senior Washington correspondent, on the same platform. But CBS is turbocharging the concept, featuring as many as eight different reporters – and could expand the show to include newsmaker interviews or dispatches from campaign embeds, says Allison Sandza, executive producer of streaming Washington coverage. The general goal, she adds, is to get the Washington reporters “to open their notebooks, and get more of their reporting on streaming that maybe wouldn’t make it on ‘Evening News,’” she says. “’Evening News’ only has so many minutes and they cover a lot more than politics.”
“It’s a way to share our journalism and what we know with another, more precise audience,” adds Ed O’Keefe, senior White House and political correspondent at CBS News.
CBS News executives are betting that younger audiences want more depth and nuance in news programming. “In this polarized environment, politics often gets a bad rap. People say, ‘I’m not interested in politics,’” says Galloway. “I think what people are not interested in is that fight. They are tired of the on person on the left and the one person on right, generally people on the extremes arguing with each other. You don’t learn a lot from that type of programming.”
Costa, who joined CBS News in 2022 after a four-year stint moderating PBS’ “Washington Week,” believes viewers will flock to a hard-news program. “The audience wants respect,” he says. “If you can show the audience respect and bring them really good, fresh information, you can build an audience.”
In weeks to come, says Galloway, executives may look at opportunities to take “America Decides” on the road to debate and convention sites. On some important evenings, he says, there may be plans that involve both CBS News’ streaming and broadcast programs and ways to get audiences to move back and forth between them. “With some of the races last year, it was really effective,” he says. “I think we are going to try to invest and double down on that.”