CBS News veteran Jan Crawford usually has the delicate task of covering the U.S. Supreme Court and the ways in which its decisions affect American lives and policies. On Sunday, however, Crawford was the one being judged.
Crawford, who joined CBS News in 2009, posted a note following a town hall meeting held Saturday night in Michigan during which Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed parried with a young man named Tommy who asked him if he would “disavow the Muslim brotherhood.” The politician won approval from liberals on social media by discussing the right to religious freedom held by Americans under the U.S. Crawford saw something different.
In her post, she said El-Sayed spent just a “nanosecond” with a disavowal, the went into a “subsequent uninterrupted three-minute diatribe” that proved the questioner’s “exact point.” She called the exchange “the kind of spectacular self own most ppl only dream about triggering,” and offered a “congrats.” By Sunday afternoon, Crawford had deleted the post. I apologize.” CBS News declined to make executives available for comment. Crawford in recent years has walked on tricky terrain.
She has become known for offering commentary, sometimes in public, sometimes in internal communications or meeting. Such behavior is typically frowned upon by most major news organizations, which want their reporters to be viewed as neutral chroniclers of the subjects and institutions to which they are assigned. Indeed, Disney’s ABC News opted not to renew the contract of longtime anchor and correspondent Terry Moran in June of 2025 after he called Trump administration official Stephen Miller a “world class hater” in a social media post.
The Crawford controversy comes as CBS News has embraced more opinion under Bari Weiss, a digital entrepreneur who was named editor in chief of the Skydance operation in 2025. Weiss, who founded the provocative site The Free Press, has brought it with her to CBS News, and some CBS News personnel have written for the site. Ross Douthat, a former conservative opinion writer for The New York Times who has been named a correspondent at “60 Minutes,” recently debuted a column he intends to produce for the lively digital operation.
Crawford is a journalist of long standing, working earlier in her career on the legal affairs beat for the Chicago Tribune after graduating from law school at the University of Chicago. She has also contributed analysis to what is now called the PBS NewsHour and worked for ABC News as well. In April, Weiss told Variety she was looking for people who could wear many hats at CBS News.
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