Scott Pelley, a veteran anchor for “60 Minutes,” was fired Tuesday after a contentious battle with CBS News management.
The new executive producer of the once-renowned CBS News show, Nick Bilton, terminated Pelley after he claimed Pelley refused to “find a path forward together” on Tuesday, according to a post from Puck News journalist Dylan Byers.
“Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear,” the termination email said in part.
Bilton announced Pelley’s departure in a message to staff obtained by CNN.
“I know how much Scott meant to many of you, and I don’t say this lightly. I made repeated attempts to have direct conversations with him over the weekend, and this afternoon I tried to find common ground. That was not the path Scott chose,” Bilton said in the message.
“What I regret most is that this situation interfered with the conversation I had hoped to have with you about Season 59 and the future of this show. I realize this is a great deal of change in a very short time, and I wouldn’t pretend otherwise,” he also said.
Pelley told the New York Times on Tuesday he still cared about the show.
“I have been in combat in Afghanistan,” Pelley told the Times after he was fired. “I have been in combat in Iraq. I have been in the war zone in Ukraine multiple times, risking my life and the happiness of my family because of my devotion to the broadcast.”
CNN reported Pelley was originally set to go on vacation Tuesday, but was instead called into a meeting with Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss, Bilton, CBS News president Tom Cibrowski and a human resources representative.
Pelley, whose career at CBS News spans more than three decades, criticized Weiss and her newly appointed head of “60 Minutes” during a tense all-hands meeting on Monday.
“She’s murdering ‘60 Minutes,’” Pelley reportedly said about Weiss, who was notably absent from the all-hands. “She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that.”
Pelley told the Times that in a meeting Tuesday, Weiss would not answer his questions about the firing of several of his colleagues. Pelley called her actions “cold and callous and beneath the dignity of CBS News.”
Before he was fired, Pelley told the Times he’d been pressured to insert bias into his “60 Minutes” stories this season.
CBS Photo Archive via Getty Images
“The collapse of values at the top has become untenable,” he said.
Pelley detailed more concerns in a statement he shared on Tuesday evening, noting that politicians had been given the ability to choose correspondents for their interviews.
“The new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration,” he said regarding management’s approach to the program. “The waste is heartbreaking.”
Weiss, a former opinion columnist and founder of The Free Press, took over as editor-in-chief in October. Under her leadership, numerous “60 Minutes” employees have either left or been fired.
In May, Weiss replaced executive producer Tanya Simon with tech journalist Nick Bilton, who has never worked in broadcast news.
During the all-hands meeting, Bilton reportedly began reading an introduction from his phone when Pelley interrupted him to focus on the Thursday firings of executive producers and correspondents.
When Bilton suggested the two have a private conversation away from the newsroom, Pelley declined, saying he preferred to speak in front of his colleagues.
Bilton noted that they’re “my colleagues too.”
Pelley reportedly replied, “That remains to be seen.”
Pelley was applauded multiple times by other staffers during the meeting.
In Bilton’s termination email to Pelley, he described the situation as an “ambush.”
“Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt,” he said. “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.”
Bill Owens, a former top executive producer who left “60 Minutes” in April over what he said was a lack of editorial independence, defended Pelley’s takedown of Bilton and Weiss.
According to Dateline, while receiving a “Truth to Power Award” by the New York City Press Club, Owens said of Pelley: “I couldn’t be prouder of him, and I know all the people at ‘60 Minutes’ couldn’t be prouder of him.”
Pelley’s firing also comes after current and former CBS News staffers sent a letter to Trump-friendly Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison on Monday, warning that 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.”