Pelley fired from ‘60 Minutes’ a day after questioning new leadership in staff meeting

CBS News terminated veteran correspondent Scott Pelley on Tuesday, hours after a heated staff meeting in which Pelley publicly confronted the show’s new executive producer, Nick Bilton.

Pelley, who spent more than 20 years as a correspondent on “60 Minutes” and 37 years at CBS News overall, was fired after the Monday meeting, which had been organized to introduce Bilton to the program’s staff. The confrontation centered on Pelley’s objections to CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, who took over the network in October, and to Bilton’s appointment to lead the program.

“Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt,” Bilton wrote in a termination letter to Pelley, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post and a number of news outlets. “Yesterday’s performative display of hostility enacted in front of the staff instead of in a civil, private conversation demonstrated that you have no interest in contributing to the future success of the show, or approaching my new tenure with a mind open to collaboration and progress.”

Bilton, a documentary filmmaker and former technology columnist at The New York Times, was appointed by Weiss to lead “60 Minutes.”

During the Monday meeting, Pelley questioned Bilton’s qualifications and pressed him about the recent firings of former executive producer Tanya Simon and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, according to an audio recording obtained by NBC News.

“She does not love this place,” Pelley told Bilton, referring to Weiss, according to the recording. “She was brought in to kill it, and she’s been doing exactly that.”

In a statement released after his termination, Pelley said he had been directed by new management to “inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story” and to report unverified assertions — claims he said he refused to carry out. He did not identify the story or provide specifics.

“Incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc,” Pelley said in the statement. “In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.”

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On Wednesday morning, Weiss addressed the firing during a staff call, the details of which were first reported by The Guardian’s Jeremy Barr.

“I know I speak for myself, and I hope I speak for everyone here when I say that I’m only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect,” Weiss said, according to Barr. “We cannot do our work without it. That foundation was broken on Monday, and despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways.”

“We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose,” she said.

Weiss also referenced recent stories Pelley had produced, calling them representative of the kind of journalism the program would continue to pursue under Bilton in Season 59, according to Barr.

Pelley joined CBS News in 1989 and anchored the “CBS Evening News” from 2011 to 2017 before returning to “60 Minutes” as a full-time correspondent.

His departure follows that of Anderson Cooper, a 20-year veteran of the program who left last month. The remaining on-air roster includes correspondents Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim.

“60 Minutes” is owned by Paramount, which was acquired last year by Skydance Media in an $8 billion merger led by David Ellison.

In his statement, Pelley addressed his tenure at the network.

“I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion — a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives,” he said. “I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again — a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.”

Pelley’s full statement on his ’60 Minutes’ firing:

There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.

The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58th season, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS.

“60” has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.

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The waste is heartbreaking.

Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.

For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.

At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.

I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion—a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.

Scott Pelley