Scott Pelley was fired from 60 Minutes after clashing with new boss Bari Weiss and Nick Bilton, accusing them of murdering the iconic CBS news program.
JONATHAN TURLEY: Kennedy Center ruling gets Trump's name right but repairs badly wrongI'm Ohio's state auditor — Medicaid fraud is not just a Washington problemMaryland sheriffs should not be handcuffed by reckless sanctuary politicsWalgreens didn’t abandon Chicago’s South Side.
We let crime drive them outLIZ PEEK: Democrats face a socialist reckoning they are too scared to stopBattle between Bari Weiss and ‘60 Minutes’ explodes as Scott Pelley accuses her of murdering the showDNC’s 192-page autopsy sounds like bad therapy. Democrats still have a big problemJesse Watters: Spencer Pratt's surge is too big to spinAOC-endorsed Democrat wins NJ primary despite terrorist tiesVideoDavid Letterman and Stephen Colbert hurled furniture, watermelons and a cake off the roof of "The Late Show" building Thursday, targeting CBS.
BATTLE BETWEEN BARI WEISS AND ‘60 MINUTES’ EXPLODES AS SCOTT PELLEY ACCUSES HER OF MURDERING THE SHOWHe gave Bari Weiss and the program’s new boss, tech journalist Nick Bilton, not the slightest opening for trying to work together to see how it goes. Once you accuse Weiss, the editor-in-chief, of"murdering" the show you’ve been on for more than two decades, you are in full bridge-burning mode.
Once you confront your new boss, Bilton, by calling him minimally qualified – and Weiss not at all – you are handing them the rope. Weiss, in damage-control mode, told the staff"there must be trust and mutual respect…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.
"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.
" "You hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt. " He called this a"performative display of hostility enacted in front of the staff. "Pelley, for his part, says the new management has already handled some of his stories unethically. At least one person was pleased.
"Look, Scott Pelley’s a stiff," President Trump told the New York Post. "And he’s afraid. And he’s part of this gang of stupid, crooked people that don’t care about our country.
" Let’s pull back the camera. Weiss has fired correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vegas and executive producer Tanya Simon. Anderson Cooper quit to return full time to CNN. SCOTT PELLEY HAS HEATED CONFRONTATION WITH NEW '60 MINUTES' BOSS, ACCUSES BARI WEISS OF 'MURDERING' SHOW The left caricatures Weiss as a crazy conservative, though that’s not true . But she and Bilton, who have worked together in the past, both have no TV experience.
If you examine it from an if-it-ain’t-broke perspective,"60 Minutes," across Manhattan’s 10th Avenue from the main building, produces $200 million in advertising revenue for the network. Its ratings are up 9 percent from last year. After 58 seasons, dating back to Mike Wallace and Morley Safer, it is averaging 9.1 million weekly viewers, an impressive figure in today’s fractured environment. And there’s been significant growth on the digital side.
So for an average viewer who doesn’t follow all the inside baseball, a lot of familiar faces are disappearing from the most successful news franchise in television history. It’s the show’s worst crisis since 1995, when CBS killed Wallace’s story on a tobacco whistleblower’s disclosures because it feared a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit.
In a lengthy statement after his exit, Pelley said"good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience… "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," though he has managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them.
" And there was this:"In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all. " Afghanistan. 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.
" CBS NEWS CHIEFS TOLD SCOTT PELLEY THEY WANTED HIM TO STAY ON ‘60 MINUTES’ BEFORE TENSE CLASH WITH NEW PRODUCER, and worked in local television before joining CBS in 1989. He considered another Texan, Dan Rather, a mentor, but lacked the same cowboy swagger. Pelley’s demeanor has always been sober and serious. He made his way up the ladder with such jobs as chief White House correspondent, and has won 51 Emmy Awards.
The political overlay is hard to miss. The new owners of CBS, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison and his son David, are billionaire friends of Trump. In fact, they threw a private dinner to honor Trump in April, attended by Bari Weiss as well as Norah O’Donnell and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. Their company obtained the administration’s approval to buy Warner Bros.
Discovery in a blockbuster deal. Some at CBS believed the dinner projected an image of excessive coziness with the White House. But the Ellisons didn’t spend that kind of money without planning to make changes. Reaction to this mess has been, well, pretty intense on both sides, as reported by Mediaite: MSNOW host Rachel Maddow said"I made a crack there talking about the Scott Pelley news as being sort of Hungarian, oligarchic-style takeover of the media.
" Tim Miller, a onetime Republican spokesman who is fiercely anti-Trump, siad"60 doesnt have another Pelley in the pipeline talent-wise. "Tommy Vietor, an Obama White House official, cracked:"Pelley seems to be attempting a murder/suicide. So far he’s halfway there.
" On the conservative side, Outkick founder Clay Travis said:"Scott Pelley has been fired by ‘60 Minutes. ’ Pelley will soon find out that no one else in media will come close to paying him millions a year to do a few stories a year. I think a lot of these old school TV guys are delusional about their market worth in today’s media.
" Newsmax host Rob Schmitt was dismissive:"Scott Pelley was a mid talent with an ego the size of Jupiter. Adios.
" Steve Krakauer, Megyn Kelly’s producer:"With Stephen Colbert and Scott Pelley now out the door at CBS, we're seeing the systematic elimination of smug, old, straight, white guys who think they're better than you. "So Pelley departs in a swirling cloud of controversy – but I’m sure he won’t have trouble finding another job.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
‘60 Minutes’ star Scott Pelley fired from CBS News after blasting Bari Weiss in heated showdownPelley, a fixture at CBS News for nearly four decades, had become the most vocal internal critic of Weiss’s overhaul of the network.
Read more »
Scott Pelley fired at CBS News after blowups with Bari Weiss, new '60 Minutes' producerScott Pelley is out at CBS News after nearly 40 years following his blowup with the network's editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and new '60 Minutes' executive producer Nick Bilton.
Read more »
Scott Pelley is the latest casualty of Bari Weiss' CBS NewsScott Pelley is the latest casualty of Bari Weiss' CBS News
Read more »
Scott Pelley issues statement after firing from '60 Minutes': Read in fullVeteran '60 Minutes' correspondent Scott Pelley was fired Tuesday amid the latest upheaval under Bari Weiss.
Read more »