Ross Douthat, a conservative opinion columnist for The New York Times, is leaving the paper to become a correspondent on CBS News’ “60 Minutes.”
Douthat has been writing for the Times since 2009 and hosts one of its well-known podcasts, “Interesting Times.”
Katie Kingsbury, the opinion editor at the Times, described Douthat as “right about things early, wrong about things honestly and never, not once, boring,” the Times reports.
As Douthat takes to the screen, both his fans and his critics have hopped online to cast their two cents on who — if anyone — should replace him.
Some hope that the writer to fill Douthat’s shoes will have similar conservative values.
Others hope for a replacement that values conservative Christian ideology, but in a different way than Douthat.
A few think a complete 180 is in order.
Several said Douthat either can’t or won’t be replaced.
And a few have even jokingly thrown their own hat into the ring.
Douthat’s hire at “60 Minutes” comes as CBS’ new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, a colleague of Douthat’s from when they both worked at the Times’ opinion desk, works to reinvent the “60 Minutes” program, an effort that led to the recent firings of some of the station’s prominent journalists.
Correspondents for “60 Minutes” produce in-depth television news stories. Douthat joins a team with existing correspondents Bill Whitaker, Lesley Stahl, Norah O’Donnell and Jon Wertheim.
“60 Minutes” also announced that Trevor Phillips, Sebastian Junger and Gianna Toboni will be joining the program as contributors to add analysis and opinion.
