Yesterday, Scott Pelley lectured his new 60 Minutes boss on how the network was “MURDERING” the Elitist Media’s most hallowed news magazine. In the process, he ended up committing career seppuku and has just been shown the door by CBS News.
Puck’s Dylan Byers reports that Pelley was called into the office to meet with top brass after yesterday’s pompous flameout:
Bari Weiss, Nick Bilton, Tom Cibrowski, and CBS HR invited Scott Pelley to a meeting at 5pm ET tonight to discuss a path forward after his vocal protest earlier this week in the 60 Minutes all-hands.
The two sides did not find common ground. Bari & Co. were left with sense that Scott was not open minded about reaching detente; meanwhile, Scott maintained strong frustrations with leadership.
Scott left meeting and was told they'd have an update on his employment in a matter of minutes... instead, Bari and her team deliberated for several hours.
After those several hours, Pelley was fired for cause. Bilton’s letter to Pelley follows:
Dear Mr. Pelley:
I meant what I said in my letter last week to the 60 Minutes team: joining 60 Minutes is the honor of my career and I am grateful to be working alongside the people who have contributed to the most important television journalism brand this country has ever produced. While I’m new to 60 Minutes, I’ve devoted my career to investigative journalism and storytelling. I started this job excited to collaborate and to benefit from the wisdom and experience of the 60 Minutes veterans, with you among them. For that reason, one of the first things I did in my new role was call you to talk and invite you to dinner. It is a profound disappointment that you rejected that overture and chose ambush instead. Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt. I welcome a diversity of viewpoints and respectful debate among the team, but this was nothing of the sort. 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. I am here to deliver first-in-class news programming, not to make headlines about newsroom drama. I am eager to work alongside those who share this goal.
Despite yesterday’s misconduct, I had hoped that in sitting down with you today we could find a path forward together. You made clear that you are not interested in such a path.
Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you. I therefore write on behalf of CBS News, Inc. (“CBS”) to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately. Enclosed is your formal termination letter.
Sincerely,
Nick Bilton
Executive Producer, 60 Minutes
Bilton then sent the following memo to the whole of the news division:
Team,
You should hear this from me first. We have parted ways with Scott Pelley.
I know how much Scott meant to many of you, and I don't say this lightly. I made repeated attempts to have direct conversations with him over the weekend, and this afternoon I tried to find common ground. That was not the path Scott chose.
What I regret most is that this situation interfered with the conversation I had hoped to have with you about Season 59 and the future of this show. I realize this is a great deal of change in a very short time, and I wouldn't pretend otherwise.
I won't relitigate the last week with you here. What I will commit to is this: My unyielding support for each of you, the journalism that you do and what we will do together going forward.
Nick
The media hall monitors will likely go into a Chernobyl-level meltdown and go on a multi-day rampage about how the Pelley firing is but the latest attack on free speech. The “for-cause” mid-contract firing certainly anticipates a lawsuit which will draw additional coverage and provide Pelley with a Resistance™ Supernova exit. Likely to Substack.
But make no mistake. After pulling that stunt and putting on that much of a show, Pelley’s firing was not a matter of “if” but “when”.
UPDATE:
In an early statement to The New York Times, Pelley humbly compares himself to a combat veteran.
Mr. Pelley, in a telephone interview on Tuesday evening shortly after he was fired, said he had devoted decades of his life to “60 Minutes,” which he said he still cared about deeply.
“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.”
As predicted, the Media Hall Monitors have come out in force. Oliver Darcy's reporting certainly confirms our suspicion that Pelley tried to get himself fired:
What Pelley kept under wraps, Status has learned, was that he had prepared a resignation letter. But he never delivered it. Instead, Pelley—who did not respond to requests for comment—anticipated that after his astonishing remarks Monday, in which he accused Weiss of "murdering" the newsmagazine, that he would be terminated from the network. He ultimately proved correct.
Pelley released a full statement. Click "expand" to unfurl it:
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 58thseason, 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
This is a breaking news story, we will update as more details become available.
