Scott Pelley says CBS News is ‘on fire’ after Bari Weiss takeover and ‘60 Minutes’ bloodbath
Former "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley accused CBS News leadership of political bias and incompetence in his first sit-down interview since he was fired from the network last week after clashing with new management.
Pelley told The New York Times' Lulu Garcia-Navarro that he hoped Paramount leadership would intervene after recent upheaval at the long-running newsmagazine.
"Right now, CBS News is on fire," Pelley said.
Pelley, who spent 37 years at CBS News, said the turmoil began after CBS dismissed several senior "60 Minutes" staffers and installed tech journalist Nick Bilton as the program’s new executive producer under CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss.
Pelley described the staff cuts as a "Black Thursday massacre" and said employees were left without a clear explanation.
"This is our entire senior staff," Pelley said. "Tanya Simon, our boss, she’s the first woman ever to be executive producer of ‘60 Minutes.’ And she concluded this season with a growth in our audience of 9%, which is unheard-of in broadcast television, and a growth of our online presence of 190%."
Pelley said he canceled a planned trip with his wife to attend Bilton's first staff meeting, where he objected to Bilton reading remarks from his phone after the firings.
Pelley claimed he felt obligated to speak because he was the senior person in the room.
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"I felt that somebody had to stand up not just for the broadcast but for the people," Pelley said.
Pelley also accused Weiss of interfering in a February "60 Minutes" story about protests in Minneapolis against an ICE crackdown. He said Weiss asked for changes after the story had already been approved by top editors and after the show’s Sunday deadline.
He said one requested change involved how the broadcast described the death of Renee Good.
"The video showed that the officer wasn’t standing in front of the car, and she wasn’t driving toward him, but that’s what the president said about that, and that’s the way she wanted it described," Pelley said.
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Pelley said he rejected the changes after reviewing the footage with producers and an editor.
"There was a thumb on the scale for the president’s version of events that I felt was a level of political influence that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News," Pelley said.
He said his larger concern was the lack of television experience among CBS News' leadership, particularly Bari Weiss.
"Television’s not her thing," Pelley said of Weiss. "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."
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CBS News denied Pelley’s characterization of Weiss’ involvement in the Minneapolis story.
"In an email, Bari made four points in the course of editorial back-and-forth," a CBS News spokesperson told The Times. "They had no political motivation and were proposed solely to make the piece as strong, fair, and accurate as possible."
The network also denied Pelley's broader allegation that Weiss was acting on behalf of the Trump administration.
"There is no credible argument to suggest Ms. Weiss was ‘putting a thumb on the scale on behalf of the administration’ in any instance over the past seven months," a CBS News spokesperson said.
Fox News Digital reached out to CBS for comment, but did not immediately hear back.