Scott Pelley Speaks Out After 60 Minutes Firing, Alleges Management Told Him to ‘Inject Falsehoods and Bias’ Into Story

LEFT: Bari Weiss (Photo by Alberto E. Tamargo/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images) RIGHT: Scott Pelley (Photo by Paul Hennessy / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

CBS News fired longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley on Tuesday night, hours after he and the organization’s leadership met to discuss his future with the network.

The day before, in a staff meeting led by new 60 Minutes Executive Producer Nick Bilton, a former tech columnist with no experience producing television news programs, Pelley challenged his new boss, partly over the stewardship of CBS News under Bari Weiss.

“In the extraordinary back and forth, an impassioned Pelley relentlessly pressed Bilton on Weiss’ intentions for the storied newsmagazine, pointed out that he has no relevant experience to helm television’s most prestigious news program, grilled Bilton on what he knew about the firings, and more,” Oliver Darcy of Status reported on Monday.

On Tuesday, CBS News fired Pelley.

“Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt,” wrote Bilton in a letter to Pelley obtained by Mediaite. “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.”

Shortly after news of the firing broke, Pelley spoke to The New York Times via phone:

“I have been in combat in Afghanistan,” Mr. Pelley said. “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.”

Pelley told the Times that Weiss refused to answer his questions about why she had fired correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega last week. He said Weiss’s behavior “was cold and callous and beneath the dignity of CBS News.”

In a statement obtained by Darcy at Status, Pelley alleged that management had told him to “inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story.” He did not elaborate:

Statement of Scott Pelley

There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.

The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58th season, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS.

“60” has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.

The waste is heartbreaking.

Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.

For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.

At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.

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, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.

Scott Pelley

Puck’s Dylan Byers, who reported earlier on Tuesday that Pelley was likely to either resign or be fired, said the wording of Bilton’s letter, in which CBS News terminated Pelley’s contract for cause, suggests a legal battle ahead.

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