Veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley has given a brutal assessment of CBS News under the leadership of editor-in-chief Baris Weiss, claiming that the network is “on fire” and calling for her removal.
Pelley, 68, who worked at CBS for nearly four decades, was fired this week after accusing Weiss, the editor-in-chief, of “murdering” the top news program during an explosive meeting Wednesday.
“We need adult supervision and at the moment we don’t have it,” Pelley, 68, told The New York Times in an exclusive interview published Sunday. “They don’t know what they’re doing. And there’s a subtle political bias that I’ve never seen at 60 Minutes before, or at CBS News before.”
He added: “So that is my hope: a return to sanity. We can save this. It’s possible to land this plane. But right now, CBS News is on fire.”
Pelley also admitted it may have been hyperbolic of him to accuse Weiss of “murdering” 60 Minutes, but insisted that language captured “the scale” of what happened.
“We have a broadcast that is among the most important in America. The most successful in the history of all television. It was doing great, so why are we making these changes?” Pelley said.
Weiss‘s “anti-woke” media outlet The Free Press was purchased by CBS’s parent company Paramount last year. She was appointed as CBS News’ editor-in-chief last October by billionaire owner David Ellison.
Pelley’s firing came after Weiss, who has no broadcast journalism experience, fired several other CBS News veterans, including executive producer Tanya Simon. She was replaced with tech journalist Nick Bilton, who also has no previous broadcast experience. Correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi – the latter who sparred with Weiss after she pulled a segment about Venezuelan migrants sent by the Trump administration to an El Salvadorian prison accused of inhumane conditions – were also fired.
Pelley referred to these firings as “the Black Thursday massacre,” and noted that 60 Minutes’ most recent season under Simon had seen ratings skyrocket while the show’s online presence grew by 190 percent.
When asked by the Times if he thought Weiss should be removed, Pelley was certain.
“Oh, gosh, yes. Look, she’s a lovely person. And her Free Press organization that she founded has been very successful. But television’s not her thing. This is like somebody walking up to me and saying, ‘There’s a 747, there are 400 people on it, we need you to fly it to Paris.’ I’m going to decline because I don’t have a clue,” he said.
“And it would have been so much better if Bari Weiss had been offered this job and said, ‘Oh, that’s not for me, I don’t know how to do that,’” he added.
Pelley served as 60 Minutes’ managing editor and anchor, and had been a correspondent for 22 years. In total, he spent 37 years at CBS News. He was sent a termination letter by Bilton, who accused him of hijacking his first meeting with staff Wednesday.
Pelley told the Times that during the meeting, he looked around the room and realized he was the most senior person — and should be the one to stand up for the staff.
“When I saw Nick Bilton’s email and then saw him reading to my brokenhearted people off his phone, I felt that somebody had to stand up not just for the broadcast but for the people. There are people in that room who go to war zones when they are pregnant,” Pelley said, while tearing up, according to the Times.
“Newsrooms are sort of like the military or the police or the beautiful people at the FDNY down the street. It is a life-threatening job in many instances. And to have people running CBS News, who don’t know that, have never felt that, and don’t understand it, is a tragedy.”
Pelley was informed that he was fired later that evening via email, he told the newspaper. The Independent has contacted CBS News for comment.
The veteran journalist thanked his colleagues in a statement posted Saturday on Instagram. “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,” he wrote.
