New faces on '60 Minutes': 3 takeaways

On Tuesday,  new "60 Minutes" executive producer Nick Bilton named two new correspondents — former "Evening News" anchor Norah O'Donnell and New York Times editorial columnist Ross Douthat — along with three new contributors, "Perfect Storm" author Sebastian Junger; former VICE reporter Gianna Toboni; and Trevor Phillips, earlier named CBS News senior global affairs correspondent.  The hires surely show the handiwork of CBS News' editor-in-chief Bari Weiss.

Here are three takeaways

Two down, two to go?

With O'Donnell and Douthat, the beleaguered broadcast may have taken a step toward removing that word from most of the stories about it these days. Back on May 28 ("Black Thursday"), two of the show's top correspondents, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, were sacked while Scott Pelley was fired the following week, each later charging that CBS had directly meddled in the show's reporting to please the White House. (Anderson Cooper had resigned in February.) There are now (likely) two correspondent positions left to fill. "60" has often had seven correspondents because that seemed to be the goldilocks number — each of those a recognizable "star," without becoming too much of one or overriding the contributions (or wattage) of the others. This now leaves two openings. Intriguingly, rising star Matt Gutman — who anchored "Evening News" Wednesday — and Major Garrett were sidelined Wednesday. Both have been considered locks, but consider this: Of the show's three veteran correspondents — Jon Wertheim, Lesley Stahl and Bill Whitaker — Stahl will turn 85 this December while Whitaker is 74. Before long "60" may have four fulltime positions to fill.

'60' still has a lot of work to do

"The race to rebuild '60 Minutes'" was the ominous Tuesday headline in the industry newsletter, Status. Impressions matter in TV news, and the impression this story left was that the show is nowhere near ready for the fast-approaching 59th season, on Sept. 13. By announcing this yesterday, CBS may have been trying to get ahead of that story, or bury it. New "60" executive producer and TV neophyte Bilton did begin Tuesday's memo with this — "we have so many stellar pieces in the works for Season 59 ..." But insiders told Status there aren't nearly enough. Could these three new contributor hires help to redress this shortfall? Unlikely. There have been many contributors over the years (Garrett, O'Donnell, John Dickerson and Dr. Jonathan LaPook are recent ones) but no matter how good they are, contributors can't make up a shortfall of this magnitude. "60" still needs to appoint some big names — and fast.

Who are these people anyway?

Each is certifiably intriguing in her or her own right. Douthat's well-known to Times readers (and viewers — he's been doing a video podcast, "Interesting Times" for a while now). A right-leaning columnist, this author of books with pointed titles like "Bad Religion: How we became a Nation of Heretics"), is also a devout Catholic who (broadly speaking) attributes the West's decline-and-fall to the relentless march of secularization. (His most recent book is "Believe: Why Everyone Should be Religious.") Among many political and TV roles, Phillips — or Sir Trevor Phillips in the U.K. — has been an activist and earlier chaired the Equality and Human Rights Commission there (he's also a Sky News "presenter"). Toboni, an author who has been with CNN, earlier did solid work for Vice, like this story on Guantánamo. And then there's Junger, who published the monster bestseller, "The Perfect Storm," in 1997. His best work, however, may have been on TV — "Restrepo," the 2010 Oscar-nominated Afghan war film he co-produced with photojournalist Tim Hetherington (who died a year later covering the civil war in Libya).