{"id":711984,"date":"2026-06-03T09:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T09:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/711984\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T09:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T09:44:10","slug":"scott-pelley-fires-back-after-cbs-news-ouster-collapse-of-values","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/711984\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Pelley Fires Back After CBS News Ouster: ‘Collapse of Values’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tScott Pelley<\/a> said he no longer recognizes \u201c60 Minutes\u201d in the months following the takeover of CBS News by Paramount Skydance, and accused the executive set in charge of the news division of \u201cincompetence and unprofessionalism\u201d that have \u201cwreaked havoc\u201d for months.<\/p>\n

\n\tPelley, in his first statement since CBS News announced his termination Tuesday evening, said Paramount Skydance \u201cis casting this legend aside\u201d as it weakens the newsmagazine \u201capparently to curry favor with the Trump administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA CBS News spokesman did not respond immediately to a query seeking comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tCBS News<\/a>\u00a0terminated the \u201c60 Minutes<\/a>\u201d veteran\u00a0after the journalist and executives felt they could not find a way to work together\u00a0following a heated public argument Monday<\/a>\u00a0between Pelley and Nick Bilton, the former tech journalist installed last week by editorial chief\u00a0Bari Weiss<\/a>, who also dispatched the show\u2019s most senior producers as well as correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. Pelley is the fourth \u201c60 Minutes\u201d reporter to leave the venerable newsmagazine since February, leaving just a trio \u2014 Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim \u2014 to handle assignments as the show prepares to get stories ready for its 59th season in the fall.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLast month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos,\u201d Pelley said. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I\u2019ve 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,\u201d he added. \u201cFinally, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPelley, who has been one of the most public faces at CBS News over a period of decades, anchoring both \u201cCBS Evening News\u201d: for a period and contributing to \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d indicated he hoped the storied news division that once served as home to Walter Cronkite might turn itself around. \u201cI depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion\u2014a heart brimming with 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\u2014a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scott Pelley said he no longer recognizes \u201c60 Minutes\u201d in the months following the takeover of CBS News…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[18026,135126,49,48,30878,75,258166,348],"class_list":["post-711984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-60-minutes","tag-bari-weiss","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cbs-news","tag-entertainment","tag-scott-pelley","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711984","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=711984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}