Scott Pelley, the veteran CBS News correspondent fired from 60 Minutes last week after 37 years at the network, posted a message of thanks Saturday to supporters who have rallied to his side, writing from the deck of a sailboat: “To all of you who have been so kind, you are the wind in my sails. So deeply grateful.”
Pelley’s dismissal came Tuesday, one day after he sharply criticized the newsmagazine’s new leadership in front of staff. The confrontation centered on Nick Bilton — a former technology journalist from The New York Times installed as executive producer by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss — whom Pelley challenged at an internal meeting, calling Bilton out for his “slender qualifications” to lead the program and accusing Weiss of “murdering” the show.
In a memo obtained by multiple outlets, Bilton told Pelley he had “hijacked” the first staff meeting to “disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt,” adding that the display demonstrated Pelley had no interest in contributing to the show’s future.
Bilton’s termination letter was blunt: “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 to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately.”
Pelley disputed Weiss’s account that the network tried to find common ground before the firing. He told the New York Times that in the Tuesday meeting, Weiss and CBS News president Tom Cibrowski “were openly hostile from the start” and that no effort was made at any point to reach a resolution.
He also alleged that new management had instructed him to inject falsehoods and bias into politically sensitive stories and report unverified assertions, saying “incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc.”
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The upheaval has been building since October, when Paramount Skydance, under new CEO David Ellison, appointed Weiss as CBS News editor-in-chief. Tensions escalated sharply earlier this year after Weiss pulled a 60 Minutes segment on migrants sent to El Salvador’s CECOT prison hours before it was set to air.
Former 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi weighed in on Instagram, writing: “He was fired for asking questions, which is the job. If you need one sentence that tells you exactly what CBS News has become under Bari Weiss, that’s it.”
The Writers Guild of America also condemned the firing, calling it evidence of “a profound contempt for the journalism profession.”
