CBS News fired longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley on Tuesday, a day after he reportedly said Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss was “murdering the show” and accused its new producer of having “slender qualifications” for the job.
The move deepened the turmoil at the nation's most influential TV news program, days after a leadership overhaul.
Pelley, 68, criticized management Monday during a fiery staff meeting with Nick Bilton, the program's new executive producer installed by Weiss last week, according to a detailed report on the Status website.
In a termination notice obtained Tuesday night by The Associated Press, Bilton, a technology journalist and filmmaker with no traditional broadcast news experience, accused Pelley of carrying out an “ambush” against him.
“Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt,” the letter states.
Pelley said in a statement that “60 Minutes” has lost its DNA under new management. He accused them of asking him to “inject falsehoods and bias” into his work, without sharing specific details.
Pelley is accused of a ‘performative display of hostility’
Status, which said it had a recording of the Monday meeting, reported that Pelley had said Weiss was brought in to kill the news outlet, “and she’s doing exactly that.” Weiss was not present for the meeting.
Pelley reportedly grilled Bilton about the firings last week of Bilton’s predecessor, Tanya Simon, and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega.
Alfonsi had criticized Weiss last year for postponing a segment about deportees sent to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador as part of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
Source: WPLG
