CBS News fires ‘60 Minutes’ correspondent Scott Pelley after clash with new producer

CBS News fired veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley on Tuesday, a day after he confronted the show’s new executive producer at a heated staff meeting.

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“Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you,” “60 Minutes” executive producer Nick Bilton said in a letter addressed to Pelley, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News.

“I therefore write on behalf of CBS News, Inc. to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately,” Bilton added.

In a written statement, Pelley expressed “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.”

Pelley’s exit deepens the turmoil at “60 Minutes,” the leading newsmagazine on American television. In recent months, “60 Minutes” employees have clashed with CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss over the show’s editorial direction under its new corporate owner, Paramount Skydance, the media company run by technology scion David Ellison.

The tension reached a fever pitch Monday during a “60 Minutes” staff meeting designed to introduce employees to Bilton, a technology journalist tapped by Weiss to be executive producer of the program. Pelley laced into Bilton, according to an audio recording obtained by NBC News and a source who was in the room.

Bilton, a documentary filmmaker and a former tech columnist at The New York Times, told the gathered staffers that Weiss “loves this institution,” according to the recording. Pelley interrupted Bilton and pushed back, accusing Weiss of “murdering” the venerable newsmagazine, which debuted in September 1968.

“She does not love this place,” Pelley told Bilton, according to the recording. “She was brought in to kill it, and she’s been doing exactly that.”

Pelley also pressed Bilton about the firings of former executive producer Tanya Simon and fellow correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega; Bilton said those decisions predated him. Alfonsi collided with Weiss last year over the decision to postpone a “60 Minutes” segment about the Trump administration’s deportation of Venezuelan men to a prison in El Salvador.

Alfonsi alleged the story was abruptly pulled for “political reasons.” Weiss said it was “not ready” for air. The segment, titled “Inside CECOT,” ultimately aired in January and featured statements from the White House and the Department of Homeland Security that were not in the original version.

In one especially tense exchange at Monday’s meeting, Pelley asked Bilton why he had accepted a position at a show “knowing that you would never be welcomed here,” according to the recording.

“I don’t believe that will be the case,” Bilton replied, according to the recording.

“I have been a journalist for 25 years, Scott. I have sat and talked with incredibly powerful people like you have,” he added. “None of it intimidates me, OK?”

In the termination letter obtained by NBC News, Bilton accused Pelley of “remarkable incivility and contempt.”

“Yesterday’s performative display of hostility — enacted in front of the staff instead of in a civil, private conversation — demonstrated that you have no interest in contributing to the future success of the show, or approaching my new tenure with a mind open to collaboration and progress,” Bilton wrote.

Pelley did not mention Weiss or Bilton by name in his lengthy written statement about his firing. But he said “new management” had instructed him to “inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story” and told him to report unverified assertions.

“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,” Pelley said in part. He did not provide specifics.

CBS News spokespeople did not immediately respond late Tuesday to a request for comment on Pelley’s statement.

Pelley’s firing marks the end of his nearly 40-year run at CBS News. He joined the news division in 1989 before he ascended to the anchor desk at the “CBS Evening News,” which he helmed from 2011 to 2017. He was a “60 Minutes” correspondent for more than 20 years.

In an email to NBC News, former “60 Minutes” executive producer Jeff Fager said, “I wouldn’t want to be running the program without Scott. He is the best of the best.”

The remaining roster of “60 Minutes” correspondents includes Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim. Anderson Cooper, a 20-year veteran of the show, left last month.

The tumult at “60 Minutes” comes amid head-spinning changes in the wider media world. Ellison, whose Skydance Media took over Paramount in an $8 billion merger, looks set to expand his media empire with a $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN and HBO. The deal still needs sign-off from federal regulators.