In an extraordinary on-air rebuke, one of the top journalists at “60 Minutes” directly criticized the program’s parent company in the final moments of its Sunday night CBS telecast, its first episode since the program’s executive producer, Bill Owens, announced his intention to resign.

“Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways,” the correspondent, Scott Pelley, told viewers. “None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”

Owens said April 22 that he would leave over disagreements with Paramount, CBS’ corporate parent.

Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Paramount, has been intent on securing approval from the Trump administration for a multibillion-dollar sale of her media company to Skydance Media.

President Donald Trump sued CBS last year, claiming $10 billion in damages, in a case stemming from a “60 Minutes” interview with the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, that Trump said was deceptively edited. Redstone has expressed her desire to settle Trump’s lawsuit, although legal experts have called the case far-fetched.

In his remarks on Sunday night’s telecast, Pelley presented Owens’ decision to resign as an effort to protect “60 Minutes” from further interference.

“He did it for us and you,” Pelley told viewers of the show, which began airing in 1968. “Stories we pursued for 57 years are often controversial — lately, the Israel-Gaza war and the Trump administration. Bill made sure they were accurate and fair. ... But our parent company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger. The Trump administration must approve it.”

After “60 Minutes” ran a segment in January about the war between Israel and Hamas, Redstone complained to CBS executives about what she considered the segment’s unfair slant. A day later, CBS appointed a veteran producer to a new role involving journalistic standards.