Pelley\u2019s decision to pointedly question and criticize<\/a> Bilton in a staff-wide meeting on Monday morning. Pelley\u2019s scathing remarks immediately leaked to outside news outlets and ignited a crisis inside CBS.\n <\/p>\n\n In the meeting, Pelley pressed Bilton to explain last Thursday\u2019s firings of top producers and two correspondents at the storied newsmagazine. Bilton, who was appointed on the same day, tried to reassure staff that he respected the program\u2019s legacy while arguing that changes were necessary.\n <\/p>\n
\n Pelley also accused Weiss, who was not in attendance, of \u201cmurdering\u201d \u201c60 Minutes.\u201d When Bilton said Weiss loves the show, Pelley responded, \u201cShe does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it, and she\u2019s been doing exactly that.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Pelley\u2019s charge had political overtones. President Donald Trump sued CBS in 2024 over a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d interview with Kamala Harris, and even though legal experts said the suit was frivolous, Paramount\u2019s previous ownership team decided to settle the case in July 2025 rather than defend the program in court.\n <\/p>\n
\n Furthermore, Paramount\u2019s new ownership team has sought a close relationship with Trump and his administration, and some critics of CBS have asserted a link between corporate attempts to appease Trump and the current overhaul of \u201c60 Minutes.\u201d Paramount is currently seeking Trump administration approval to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, including CNN.\n <\/p>\n
\n CBS leaders have portrayed the situation very differently, saying that Weiss and her deputies are trying to revive a moribund TV news division and reorient its programs to reach new digital audiences.\n <\/p>\n
\n Weiss has tapped outsiders to do so. Her hiring of Bilton, a filmmaker and former tech reporter with little TV news experience, was the latest in a string of hotly debated moves.\n <\/p>\n
\n During Monday\u2019s staff meeting, Pelley depicted Weiss and Bilton as unqualified for their jobs and said Bilton would \u201cnever be welcome here.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Some insiders at CBS said afterward that they thought Pelley was daring Weiss to fire him. His detractors at the network said he acted like a bully at the staff meeting. But his supporters \u2014 and he has many \u2014 said he was just standing up for his colleagues and trying to protect the \u201c60 Minutes\u201d franchise.\n <\/p>\n
\n In the letter justifying Pelley\u2019s termination on Tuesday night, Bilton wrote to Pelley, \u201cYou hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Bilton called it a \u201cperformative display of hostility enacted in front of the staff\u201d that \u201cdemonstrated 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.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cDespite yesterday\u2019s misconduct,\u201d Bilton continued, \u201cI had hoped that in sitting down with you today we could find a path forward together. You made clear that you are not interested in such a path.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n That was a reference to a late afternoon meeting between Pelley and senior leadership. Weiss and Bilton were present, along with CBS News president Tom Cibrowski and a human resources representative, according to a source.\n <\/p>\n
\n The meeting, which was first reported by Puck, ended without any clear resolution about the way forward, and Pelley told staffers that he expected to be fired.\n <\/p>\n
\n Later Tuesday evening, Bilton wrote to \u201c60 Minutes\u201d staffers about Pelley\u2019s termination, acknowledging the correspondent\u2019s stature inside the newsmagazine while defending the decision to \u201cpart ways\u201d with him.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI know how much Scott meant to many of you, and I don\u2019t say this lightly,\u201d Bilton wrote. \u201cI made repeated attempts to have direct conversations with him over the weekend, and this afternoon I tried to find common ground. That was not the path Scott chose.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Bilton also sought to turn the staff\u2019s attention back to the future of \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d writing, \u201cI realize this is a great deal of change in a very short time, and I wouldn\u2019t pretend otherwise.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI won\u2019t relitigate the last week with you here,\u201d Bilton wrote. \u201cWhat I will commit to is this: My unyielding support for each of you, the journalism that you do and what we will do together going forward.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Pelley did not immediately respond to a request for comment.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summary CBS News fired veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley after he publicly criticized the show’s new leadership.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,348],"class_list":["post-711332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}