Bari Weiss, editor in chief of CBS News, on a staff call addressed the termination Scott Pelley, a longtime presence at the news outlet who was ousted from “60 Minutes” Tuesday after he engaged in a tenacious confrontation with the new executive producer of the newsmagazine.
Weiss is facing the risk of a full-scale revolt at “60 Minutes” after a series of dramatic shake-ups at the venerable program, including installing former tech journalist Nick Bilton as executive producer and ousting veterans including former EP Tanya Simon. CBS News fired Pelley late Tuesday after he engaged in heated argument a day earlier with Bilton at an internal meeting.
At the top of a conference call with CBS News staffers Wednesday morning, Weiss addressed the elephant in the room. Variety has confirmed the comments she made at the meeting.
“Before we get into it, I need to address what’s transpired in our newsroom over the past two days and what is making news,” she said. “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 continued: “We cannot do our work without it. 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.”
Weiss added that the “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.”
She cited the journalist’s stories from this past season on the show including about the “Havana Syndrome” and his “incredible” interview with Ben Sasse, the former Nebraska senator who has metastatic pancreatic cancer. Weiss said that those are the kinds of stories “that Nick Bilton is going to put on the air come September in Season 59 with the amazing team that’s still there and hopefully from some new people that are going to be joining us.”
Tom Cibrowski, president and executive editor of CBS News, also weighed in on the matter Wednesday, saying that he “echo[es] all of those thoughts” after Weiss spoke. “Scott was an integral part of ’60 Minutes,’ ‘CBS Evening News,’ this entire news organization for decades,” Cibrowski said, adding, that his “incredible body of work” will “always be part of the history of CBS News, and you will miss Scott very much.”
Cibrowski said that “we know that these events, developments, changes, are a lot to process for every single person in this room and on this call. And they are happening frequently. And 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. All we can say is that we are taking this very seriously, and we are here to support you, and that means we’re not gonna do it on this public call, but if you want to talk to us, please, please. We will check in with as many of you as possible, but please call us. Please email us and we will have conversations throughout this time.”
In a letter Bilton sent to Pelley informing him that he was being fired, the new “60 Minutes” EP wrote in part, “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 effective immediately.”
Pelley struck a defiant tone in a statement late Tuesday about his dismissal from “60 Minutes.”
“Last month, ’60 Minutes’ lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause,” Pelley said. On May 28, CBS News ousted Simon as well as “60 Minutes” executive editor Draggan Mihailovich and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega.
“Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience,” Pelley said in the statement. “They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.”
Pelley lashed out at Weiss’ installation at the head of CBS News, alleging that “incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc.” He said that with one of his recent stories for “60 Minutes,” the entire program “came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.”
Pelley asserted that “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. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done.”
In an Instagram post Wednesday, Alfonsi, the former “60 Minutes” correspondent, commented on Pelley’s termination: “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.”
Brian Steinberg contributed to this article.
