Veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley has spoken out again following his firing from CBS.
Pelley was fired Wednesday after reportedly accusing CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss of “murdering” the top news program.
The journalist, 68, shared a new Instagram post Saturday thanking his fans for their support in the days since he received a termination letter from Nick Bilton, the new executive producer of 60 Minutes.
“To all of you who have been so kind, you are the wind in my sails. So deeply grateful,” he captioned the photo of himself out on the water.
The post has amassed over 33,000 likes and hundreds of likes within hours of being shared by Pelley.
Pelley served as the show’s managing editor and anchor, and had been a 60 Minutes correspondent for 22 years. He spent 37 years at CBS News, saying in an initial statement that he leaves with “a heart brimming with gratitude.”
He was sent a termination letter by 60 Minutes’ new executive producer, Nick Bilton, whom the journalist said had “slender” qualifications for the job.
In a note that Bilton sent to Pelley alongside his formal termination letter, which circulated on social media Tuesday night, the new 60 Minutes chief said Pelley had set up an “ambush.”
“Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt,” Bilton wrote in the note.
Bilton had tried to reassure 60 Minutes staff at Monday’s meeting that the program “is going to stay exactly like it is for now,” and that “Bari loves this institution,” according to The New York Times, which obtained an audio recording of the tense exchange.
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“She is murdering 60 Minutes. She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it, and she’s been doing exactly that,” Pelley reportedly fired back.
“She has no qualifications for her job; you have slender qualifications for this job,” he added.
Weiss, who founded the “anti-woke” media outlet The Free Press, was appointed as the network’s editor-in-chief last October after billionaire David Ellison, who has reported ties to President Donald Trump, took over CBS’s parent company, Paramount.
The CBS News boss has faced scrutiny since being appointed, particularly over her decision to pull a 60 Minutes segment about Venezuelan migrants sent by the Trump administration to CECOT, an El Salvadoran prison accused of having inhumane conditions. The segment aired nearly one month later.
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