Longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley is out of the famed news program.
Pelley, who spent over 30 years at CBS News, was fired on Tuesday from the company after a clash with new “60 Minutes” top producer Nick Bilton.
“Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear,” Bilton wrote in a memo to Pelley that was seen by Business Insider. “I therefore write on behalf of CBS News, Inc. to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately.”
A CBS News spokesperson declined to comment.
Pelley’s departure follows a testy staff meeting with Bilton on Monday, an audio recording of which was obtained by Status and The New York Times.
During one exchange, Pelley reportedly said CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss “does not love this place,” and is “murdering” the “60 Minutes” newsmagazine.
In Bilton’s memo, the executive wrote that he had tried to reach out to Pelley but was instead rejected and met with an “ambush.”
“Despite yesterday’s misconduct, I had hoped that in sitting down with you today we could find a path forward together,” Bilton wrote. “You made clear that you are not interested in such a path.”
In a statement after his termination, Pelley slammed “60 Minutes” management, saying he had been directed, but refused, to “inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story.”
“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,” Pelley wrote.
Read more about the tumult at CBS News
CBS News under Weiss
Weiss has characterized her overhaul of CBS News — including “60 Minutes” — as part of a mission to remake the organization for the digital era.
Her critics say she’s trying to make the broadcast network more friendly to President Donald Trump, whose administration is tasked with approving or rejecting CBS-parent Paramount Skydance’s plan to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. Weiss has pushed back against criticism and said her actions are not political.
During the Monday staff meeting, Pelley told Bilton he had “slender qualifications” for the top job at “60 Minutes,” according to The New York Times. Bilton, formerly a New York Times tech reporter who’s also produced documentaries for HBO and Netflix, doesn’t have a TV news background.
Pelley also grilled Bilton on the departures of correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi from “60 Minutes” last week.
In an exit memo, Vega said that she and her colleagues battled “efforts to insert political bias into our stories” that she characterized as “censorship, both imposed and self-driven.”
Alfonsi referenced “an intense editorial dispute” with Weiss, who delayed her December story about the Trump administration’s migrant deportation tactics involving El Salvador’s CECOT prison.
This decision by Weiss “was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting, and it sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom,” Alfonsi wrote.
Weiss told staffers that her decision to delay the story wasn’t politically motivated.
