The longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley, who was fired by CBS News on Tuesday after clashing with the network’s new management, issued a public statement accusing the network’s new executives of silencing employees and claiming they instructed him “to inject falsehoods and bias” into his reporting.
“‘60’ has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories,” Pelley wrote in the lengthy statement he shared on social media on Wednesday morning.
“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.”
Pelley criticized the new leadership at CBS, adding: “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.”
He continued: “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.”
He concluded his statement by saying that he was departing “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.”
CBS News did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment about the statement.
Bari Weiss addressed Pelley’s termination on the network’s morning call on Wednesday.
“I know I speak for myself, and I hope I speak for everyone here when I say that I’m only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect. We cannot do our work without it. That foundation was broken on Monday, and despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways,” Weiss said, according to an audio recording of the meeting obtained by the Guardian.
“We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose. That unfortunate outcome does not discount from the amazing contributions and work that Scott Pelley has done for CBS and for 60 Minutes over the course of his career.”
She then listed some of his stories from the past season and called them “unforgettable stories”.
Pelley released another statement on Wednesday afternoon contesting Weiss’s assertions about the meeting held a day earlier, and suggesting that no attempt at detente was made.
“Bari Weiss knows what she said is not true,” he said. “In the meeting on Tuesday, in which I was effectively fired, there was no effort to ‘find a way back,’ as Weiss said in the editorial meeting. At no point did anyone in the Tuesday meeting suggest there could be steps taken by either side that would lead to a resolution.”
Later in his new statement, Pelley said: “I am pained that the staff of CBS News was misled in the Wednesday morning conference call. These executives cannot gain the trust of staff with lies. This is antithetical to everything we stand for and reveals contempt for what journalists do.”
Pelley has worked on the show since 2004, and was terminated on Tuesday after clashing with the new network leadership. His dismissal came after CBS News management stunned staffers last week by firing the network’s executive producer, executive editor and two correspondents, without giving a specific reason. Tensions boiled over during a heated meeting on Monday, involving the show’s newly appointed executive editor, Nick Bilton, along with another CBS News executive. During the meeting, Pelley rebuked Weiss, the opinion commentator whom CBS News in October named as editor-in-chief.
“She’s murdering 60 Minutes,” Pelley said, as first reported by the Guardian. “She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that.”
Pelley was informed of his termination the following day, in a message from Bilton, who reportedly called out Pelley’s conduct in the meeting.
“Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt,” he wrote.
