CBS News fires ‘60 Minutes' correspondent Scott Pelley after clash with new producer
CBS News has fired veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley a day after he confronted the show’s new executive producer at a heated staff meeting.
“Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you,” “60 Minutes” executive producer Nick Bilton said in a letter addressed to Pelley, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News.
“I therefore write on behalf of CBS News, Inc. to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately,” Bilton added.
In a separate note to “60 Minutes” staffers, Bilton confirmed that the network had “parted ways” with Pelley.
“I know how much Scott meant to many of you, and I don’t say this lightly,” Bilton wrote. “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.”
Pelley’s exit deepens the turmoil at “60 Minutes,” the leading newsmagazine on American television. In recent months, “60 Minutes” employees have clashed with CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss over the show’s editorial direction under its new corporate owner, Paramount Skydance, the media company run by technology scion David Ellison.
The tension reached a fever pitch Monday during a “60 Minutes” staff meeting designed to introduce employees to Bilton, a technology journalist tapped by Weiss to be executive producer of the program. Pelley laced into Bilton, according to an audio recording obtained by NBC News and a source who was in the room.
Bilton, a documentary filmmaker and a former tech columnist at The New York Times, told the gathered staffers that Weiss “loves this institution,” according to the recording. Pelley interrupted Bilton and pushed back, accusing Weiss of “murdering” the venerable newsmagazine, which debuted in September 1968.
“She does not love this place,” Pelley told Bilton, according to the recording. “She was brought in to kill it, and she’s been doing exactly that.”
Pelley also pressed Bilton about the firings of former executive producer Tanya Simon and fellow correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega; Bilton said those decisions predated him. Alfonsi collided with Weiss last year over the decision to postpone a “60 Minutes” segment about the Trump administration’s deportation of Venezuelan men to a prison in El Salvador.
Alfonsi alleged the story was abruptly pulled for “political reasons.” Weiss said it was “not ready” for air. The segment, titled “Inside CECOT,” ultimately aired in January and featured statements from the White House and the Department of Homeland Security that were not in the original version.
In one especially tense exchange at Monday’s meeting, Pelley asked Bilton why he had accepted a position at a show “knowing that you would never be welcomed here,” according to the recording.
“I don’t believe that will be the case,” Bilton replied, according to the recording.
“I have been a journalist for 25 years, Scott. I have sat and talked with incredibly powerful people like you have,” he added. “None of it intimidates me, OK?”
Pelley’s firing marks the end of his nearly 40-year run at CBS News. He joined the news division in 1989 before he ascended to the anchor desk at the “CBS Evening News,” which he helmed from 2011 to 2017. He was a “60 Minutes” correspondent for more than 20 years.
The tumult at “60 Minutes” comes amid head-spinning changes in the wider media world. Ellison, whose Skydance Media took over Paramount in an $8 billion merger, looks set to expand his media empire with a $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN and HBO. The deal still needs sign-off from federal regulators.
Adam Reiss contributed.
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