Top leaders at CBS News both praised and blamed “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley in a morning meeting the day after firing him, according to a recording obtained by Business Insider.
Pelley was dismissed by CBS News on Tuesday after sparring with his new boss — “60 Minutes” top producer Nick Bilton — and calling out CBS News top editor Bari Weiss.
Weiss told staffers on Wednesday morning’s editorial call that the network “had to part ways” with Pelley after their foundation of trust was “broken.”
“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,” Weiss said on the call. “We cannot do our work without it.”
Weiss continued: “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. We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose.”
Weiss said Pelley’s legacy at CBS News, where he worked for more than 30 years, won’t be marred by how his tenure ended.
“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,” Weiss said. She then listed some of his top stories from this past season, like his reporting on Havana syndrome and an interview with former Nebraska senator Ben Sasse.
In response to the leaked audio of Weiss’ comments, Pelley said in a statement to The New York Times that “Bari Weiss knows what she said is not true.”
“In the meeting on Tuesday, in which I was effectively fired, there was no effort of any kind to ‘find a way back,’ as Weiss said in the editorial meeting,” Pelley said in his statement. “At no point did anyone in the Tuesday meeting suggest that there could be steps taken by either side that would lead to a resolution.”
In the CBS News meeting on Wednesday morning, president Tom Cibrowski also praised Pelley.
“Undoubtedly, Scott was an integral part of ’60 Minutes,’ ‘CBS Evening News,’ this entire news organization for decades,” Cibrowski said. “He has an incredible body of work, as Bari just mentioned, and that will always be part of the history of CBS News, and we will miss Scott very much.”
Cibrowski acknowledged that the changes at CBS News, which Weiss has said she is trying to transform for the digital era, may be “a lot to process.”
“We know that’s a lot, to ask you all to come to work every day with your head held high to do the job that we ask you to do,” Cibrowski said. “All we can say is that we are taking this very seriously and we are here to support you.”
Pelley follows fellow correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi, who also left “60 Minutes” last week.
