Tony Dokoupil Pays Tribute to Fired Colleague Scott Pelley on CBS Evening News: He ‘Valued Truth at All Costs’

CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil paid tribute to his former colleague Scott Pelley after his Tuesday firing by new 60 Minutes executive producer Nick Bilton. 

Bilton announced Pelley’s termination in a letter addressed to the longtime 60 Minutes correspondent on Tuesday evening, calling out his “misconduct” and “antipathy to the future of the show” before informing him of his firing. The move came after Bilton’s first meeting with 60 Minutes staff on Monday– after being appointed to his new role by CBS editor Bari Weiss on Thursday amid a slew of firings– was hijacked by Pelley, who demanded to know more details on the firings.

The former anchor of CBS Evening News also took aim at Weiss, claiming she had “no qualifications for her job” and is “murdering 60 Minutes.” Pelley criticized Bilton directly, telling him he “would never be welcomed” at the show and calling out Bilton’s “slender” qualifications for the job.

Weiss addressed the firing during a Wednesday morning call, claiming it was the “path he chose.”

Dokoupil, who was given the Evening News role by Weiss at the start of her tenure late last year, lauded Pelley’s long journalism career on Wednesday’s Evening News.

“When I started at CBS, Scott Pelley was in this very chair, and still doing a dozen stories a year for 60 Minutes. And amid all of that, still meeting every new correspondent to share his view of the mission here,” said Dokoupil. “He believed freedom of the press, to quote [James] Madison, was ‘the right that guaranteed all the others.’ And the stakes are always that high in that, if you’d made it to CBS News, you were among the best in the world. He worked every single day to live up to that standard.”

The anchor then played a compilation of some of Pelley’s work, including his on-the-ground coverage of 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, and in “hot spots all over the world” and at home. The compilation noted Pelley’s interviews with multiple presidents and his slew of Emmy awards.

“He was in some ways a man from another era, and that’s not a knock,” said Dokoupil’s narration. “He didn’t watch the competition, he said, because he knew who he was. A journalist who valued truth at all costs.”

The tribute also noted that Pelley “always kept alive the memory of colleagues killed in the field– a reminder that his chosen line of work could be a dangerous one.”

Dokoupil closed by pointing out Pelley’s choice to change the CBS Evening News logo from “with Scott Pelley” to “with all of us.”

“Well, Scott, from all of us, thank you,” said Dokoupil.

Watch above via CBS Evening News.

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