CBS News fired veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley, one day after he sharply criticized the newsmagazine’s new leadership in front of the staff.
CBS said Pelley was terminated for cause, and industry analysts immediately predicted that Pelley might take legal action against the network.
The firing is sure to trigger even more scrutiny of CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss and her controversial efforts to overhaul the network news division.
In a letter to Pelley that was shared by CBS, the program’s newly appointed executive producer Nick Bilton wrote that Pelley’s “antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you.”
Therefore, he wrote, “your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately.”
The letter referenced Pelley’s decision to pointedly question and criticize Bilton in a staff-wide meeting on Monday morning. His scathing remarks immediately leaked to outside news outlets and ignited a crisis inside CBS.
Following the firing, Pelley said, "There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes. The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. '60' has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects.”
