CBS News believes it is taking a bold step forward by mandating that interviews airing on Face the Nation will no longer be edited. The network is trying to project an air of transparency and authenticity, but in practice, it feels like a misguided attempt at purity that ignores how modern politicians operate and how modern media functions.
Politicians have perfected the craft of not answering questions. Ask them about inflation, and you’ll hear a 90-second soliloquy on how their opponent is to blame for something that happened 15 years ago. Request a straight answer on foreign policy, and you’re treated to a word salad so tangled it makes little sense by the end of the response. Leaving these rambling, evasive answers unedited may appear noble, but it will frustrate viewers and drain the effectiveness of the broadcast.
One of the hallmarks of strong journalism is clarity. Editing interviews doesn’t mean changing meaning; it means refining them for comprehension and context. When a guest filibusters their way through an answer, clipping the fat allows viewers to focus on what was actually said — or not said. Stripping that ability away puts the burden on the audience to parse nonsense, and in today’s fractured media landscape, that is asking for trouble.
This new policy also limits the usefulness of CBS News content across its many platforms. Face the Nation interviews are often gold mines for digital repackaging. A sharp, three-minute exchange can thrive on YouTube. A concise answer can be repurposed for CBS’s FAST channel or a Paramount+ news hub. Even CBS Evening News producers can pull soundbites that fit their rundown. Refusing to edit interviews means CBS is boxing itself out of maximizing distribution opportunities, which every media company desperately needs in 2025.
Audiences consume news in clips more than ever. Very few people sit down for a full 45-minute interview anymore. They want portions that are easy to digest, easy to share, and easy to understand. CBS News is essentially handicapping itself in the fight for relevance in the digital space by insisting on the “uncut” version. That might sound good in a press release, but it falls flat when trying to reach younger audiences who never tune in live.
It’s also important to remember that editing is not inherently deceptive. Networks have editorial standards, fact-checking systems, and producers whose jobs are to ensure interviews are presented fairly. Removing repetition, cleaning up fragmented phrases, or cutting the five times a guest dodged the same question is not manipulation; it’s good storytelling. By refusing to exercise that editorial judgment, CBS is letting politicians dictate the quality of the product rather than the journalists themselves.
And let’s be honest: politicians will absolutely take advantage of this. If you know you can run out the clock with a 90-second talking point that eats up the question (or more likely, avoids the question entirely), why wouldn’t you? The unedited policy rewards avoidance. Instead of being pressed to answer, guests can stretch and stall, knowing their entire response — no matter how empty — is guaranteed airtime. That’s not accountability. That’s surrender.
Other outlets will benefit from CBS’s decision. Competitors who edit for clarity will create crisper, more shareable content. When MSNBC or CNN puts out a highlight clip that actually gets to the heart of the matter, and CBS offers a meandering five-minute non-answer, which one do you think audiences will choose? The network’s self-imposed shackles could make Face the Nation feel bloated and less competitive.
CBS News is trying to sell this as transparency, but what viewers truly want is understanding. They want to know what was said, why it matters, and how it fits into the broader narrative. Editing is a service to the audience, not a betrayal of it. By abandoning that responsibility, CBS is acting more as a stenographer than a journalist.
Ultimately, the move feels like a retreat from what made Face the Nation one of the most respected shows in television news. The program built its reputation on holding leaders accountable and cutting through noise to deliver clarity. The new policy undercuts that mission. Instead of producing sharper, more informative journalism, the show risks becoming a stage for obfuscation.
CBS News — until it needed to pay a what can easily be viewed as a bribe to the Trump administration to get its merger with Skydance approved — has always prided itself on its journalistic standards. That’s why this policy is so puzzling. It’s a decision that prioritizes optics over substance, and in doing so, it hampers the network’s ability to connect with audiences across platforms.
Editing interviews doesn’t weaken journalism. It strengthens it. And without that strength, Face the Nation could lose the very edge that made it matter in the first place.
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
I would love to see a neutral take on this issue and not an obvious partisan hit piece. Are you telling me there are no benefits to this policy? Without it how do you prevent obviously politically motivated editing like in the CBS Kamala interview? It seems to me without editing, politicians of both parties will have to adjust a bit because you know some non sensical 90 second response will come back to bite that person in opponents’ campaign ads etc.
Dave, I think to call this an “obvious partisan hit piece” is a bit much. Heck, I don’t think there’s even much political in this story in the first place, let alone that it leans one way or another (outside of saying that Paramount paid the Trump administration a bribe to get the Skydance merger through. That’s my opinion).
Secondly, I don’t believe that the editing of the Kamala Harris interview was “politically motivated.” It was done for two reasons: to make better TV, and to have something new to use on CBS Mornings. Clearly, you disagree, and that’s your prerogative.
I don’t believe that politicians will change the way they answer questions because taking a proverbial knee and running out the clock is a much easier option, which isn’t likely to ever be used against you in a campaign ad. Because if “This candidate won’t even answer questions!” was a winning campaign strategy, it would have been used hundreds of times and would be the chief strategy against dozens of current politicians. I think the policy makes it more difficult to get valuable information out of the interview subjects, which is why I said that it puts optics over substance. Because anyone who disliked the idea that an interview could be edited isn’t magically going to change their tune. They’ll simply find something else to complain about with the show.
Garrett, I appreciate the response. I still disagree though. If you want to just call yourself an entertainment program that’s fine, but if you call yourself a news program and you edit the answer of a Presidential candidate so that no part of the actual answer she gave was in the final product then you as an organization are making the “news”, not reporting it. I’m not even sure where the answer they actually used came from. How can you call that editing? That’s creating content.
With this new more transparent model, all CBS has to do is not air interviews where the politicians refuse to answer questions. There are plenty of political types craving air time that will play by the rules if they want their faces on TV and social media. Biden went almost his whole term without doing interviews and no one seemed to care. There’s always someone else to fill the space.
Garrett, I cannot agree with you more. And I don’t think this is an obvious partisan hit piece. In fact, I used to think you edged to one side, but I’ve since changed my position. We’ve always gotten gobbledygook from politicians coming on new shows. It’s a filibuster of talking points often times that do not answer a question. I would suggest that this administration has worsened the relationship between politicians and media with their attacks on non-fox media companies. And you are right, many of us will not watch in elongated interview that sounds like a stump speech.
Well written and very thoughtful. Having worked in both TV and radio, editing has ALWAYS been used for a variety of reasons, none of which is the meaning of the message. Time, obvious flubs, technical issues…lighting/sound, tightening up etc. have all been reasons to edit. Sad to see CBS, once the gold standard in broadcasting, stoop so low and not stand up for journalism. First 60 Minutes, now Face the Nation…being told how to present their truths. Like it or not, it IS becoming political