Scott Pelley fired from CBS’s 60 Minutes amid broader CBS News leadership turmoil

Veteran journalist Scott Pelley was let go after pushing back against other controversial firings

Before Scott Pelley was fired from 60 Minutes last week, he accused CBS’s editor-in-chief of “murdering” the programme he had served for over two decades. For a show that once defined hard-edged journalism, his dismissal raises questions about what institutional independence means. The split followed a tense staff meeting in which Pelley confronted the show’s new executive producer. In a statement after his firing, Pelley said the organisation was becoming more policitised and tried to get him...

Fired "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley can't seem to understand why he got canned by CBS after he confronted his new boss.

Callous. Biased. Tone deaf. Unprofessional. That's how axed 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley describes the leadership of CBS News in his first interview since losing his job last week.

Scott Pelley has spoken out in a raw and emotional podcast interview about his last days at CBS News, where he spent 37 years

Scott Pelley is going scorched earth on former boss Bari Weiss.Pelley, a longtime 60 Minutes correspondent and CBS employee since 1989, was fired last week after months of discord between him and Weiss, the founder of The Free Press, who was controversially appointed CBS News editor in chief in October.In Pelley’s resignation letter, he wrote that new management “instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias” into his work. Speaking to The New York Times’ Lulu Garcia-Navarro on Sunday, Pelley stated Weiss had put “a thumb on the scale” for President Donald Trump’s version of events.When Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents violently besieged Minnesota last winter, Pelley said Weiss sent an email to Tanya Simon—at the time the executive producer of 60 Minutes—asking if the show could make local protesters appear more violent.“We had gone out of our way in our plan from the very beginning to show the protesters for the responsibility that they had,” Pelley said. “We had already scrubbed the video archives looking for those scenes. But it somehow wasn’t enough for Ms. Weiss.”After protester Renee Good was shot and killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, Pelley said Weiss sent an email asking staff to describe Good’s car as veering toward the agent, despite video evidence showing otherwise.“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,” Pelley said.Since Weiss took over as editor in chief, her tenure has been marred by clashes with CBS’s experienced reporters. One high-profile conflict came in December, when she pulled a 60 Minutes report on the suffering of Venezuelans deported to CECOT prison in El Salvador by the Trump administration. Weiss argued the story was not balanced enough and suggested the reporters reach out to Stephen Miller, the curmudgeon behind Trump’s deportation policies, for an interview.The journalist responsible for the CECOT report, Sharyn Alfonsi, wrote a damning email about the decision that was leaked to the press. “Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now—after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one,” she said.Weiss’s tenure has also coincided with the departure of Anderson Cooper, who left 60 Minutes in May. In his final episode, Cooper stressed the importance of the program’s editorial freedom, in remarks seen as a jab at Weiss and CBS.Simon was fired and replaced by Nick Bilton, a tech journalist with zero experience in broadcast television, in late May. Pelley reportedly said in a staff meeting last week that Bilton would “never be welcome” at the show—the final straw for CBS’s new upper brass, who fired Pelley a day later.