CBS News fired longtime "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley on Tuesday, a day after he reportedly said Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss was "murdering the show" and accused its new producer of having "slender qualifications" for the job. The move deepened the turmoil at the nation's most influential TV news program and the news unit that oversees it.
Pelley had criticized the program's leadership during a meeting Monday between the show's staff and Nick Bilton, the new executive producer named by Weiss last week, according to a detailed report on the Status website.
In a termination notice obtained Tuesday night by The Associated Press, Bilton, a former technology journalist and filmmaker with no traditional broadcast news experience, accused Pelley of carrying out an “ambush” against him.
“Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt,” the letter states.
Pelley is accused of a ‘performative display of hostility’
Pelley's agent did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night. But Dylan Byers, a senior correspondent for Puck who covers the media, posted a statement on X that quoted the former CBS News anchor as saying he had been asked to undertake questionable journalism that involved "falsehoods and bias."
"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," the statement quoted Pelley as saying.
Status, which said it had heard a recording of the Monday meeting, reported that Pelley grilled Bilton about the firings last week of Bilton’s predecessor, Tanya Simon, and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. He also allegedly said that Weiss, who was not present at the meeting, was brought in to kill the news outlet, "and she’s doing exactly that.”
In the dismissal letter late Tuesday, Bilton said Pelley’s “performative display of hostility” demonstrated that he has “no interest in contributing to the future success of the show.”
It has been an uneasy stretch for CBS News
Since Weiss took over the network's news operation last year, it has traveled a bumpy road.
Pelley's termination came just five days after Weiss, who has become a polarizing figure in the media world since taking the reins at CBS last October, told staff in a memo that it was time for a “new approach” at the top-rated newsmagazine.
In the memo, Weiss and CBS News president Tom Cibrowski said their goal for “60 Minutes” was “building a show that thrives in the 21st century.”
“60 Minutes” first aired in 1968 and is the longest-running prime-time show in TV history. Its investigative journalism and probing interviews, sometimes with unwilling subjects, have given it the reputation of uncompromising journalism — precisely the trait that Pelley said he feared was under assault.
Pelley started working for CBS in 1989. He was its chief White House Correspondent from 1997 to 1999, during Bill Clinton's presidency, and anchored “CBS Evening News” from 2011 to 2017.
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