Former “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens defended Scott Pelley’s scathing criticism of CBS News’ leadership and recent management changes on Monday, saying the veteran journalist “can smell a fraud from a mile away,” according to reports.
“I couldn’t be prouder of him, and I know all the people at ‘60 Minutes’ couldn’t be prouder of him,” Owens said of Pelley, according to Dateline, while receiving a “Truth to Power Award” on Monday by the New York City Press Club. The accolade follows Owens’ resignation from CBS News last year, citing threats to his journalistic independence linked to the Trump administration, according to the press club.
“CBS News and ‘60 Minutes’ are institutions, not places where partisans and ideologues should be employed,” he said, according to Variety.
His message follows the abrupt firing last week of executive producers and correspondents with the nation’s top TV newsmagazine and the appointment of Nick Bilton as the program’s executive producer.
Bilton is a former tech columnist and documentarian. He has never worked in broadcast TV news, like CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss, who was appointed late last year by the Trump-aligned CEO of Paramount Skydance, David Ellison.
“She has no qualifications for her job; you have slender qualifications for this job,” Pelley told Bilton during Monday morning’s heated staff meeting, according to The New York Times. “The changes that she’s made at the ‘Evening News’ have been catastrophic, so why should we expect that any of this is going to be any better?”
Owens echoed that assessment while criticizing last week’s terminations.
“They were fired by people who don’t even know what we do, who don’t actually care,” Owens said.
CBS News staffers sent a letter to Ellison on Monday expressing similar concern and sentiment.
The letter, signed by current and former “60 Minutes” staffers, as well as other prominent journalists and actors, read, “The wholesale dismissal of editorial management, without a public pledge to maintain the values, standards, and traditions of this program, puts the legacy of ‘60 Minutes’ in jeopardy.”