fired \u201cfor cause\u201d<\/a> by the show\u2019s new executive producer, Nick Bilton, after clashing with him over the firing of his long-time colleagues and telling Bilton he had \u201cslender\u201d qualifications for the job.<\/p>\nIn his statement, Pelley lamented the \u201cwaste is heartbreaking,\u201d and said \u201c60 Minutes\u201d lost its DNA after its entire senior leadership and two of his on-air colleagues\u2014 Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega\u2014were \u201ccruelly fired without cause.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said they were silenced for standing against \u201cthe forces of political bias\u201d before alleging that the new management instructed him to \u201cinject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story,\u201d which he claims he ignored.<\/p>\n
Read Scott Pelley\u2019s Full Statement<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.<\/p>\n
The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58th season, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS. <\/p>\n
\u201c60\u201d 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. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration. <\/p>\n
The waste is heartbreaking.<\/p>\n
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. 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.<\/p>\n
For 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. Finally, 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.<\/p>\n
At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to \u201ckeep up the good fight.\u201d Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well. <\/p>\n
I 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. <\/p>\n
Scott Pelley\u201d<\/p>\n
Further Reading<\/p>\n
Top \u201860 Minutes\u2019 Correspondent Scott Pelley Fired After He Calls Out CBS News Boss Bari Weiss<\/a> (Forbes)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Topline Ousted \u201c60 Minutes\u201d correspondent Scott Pelley called out CBS News and Paramount\u2019s new leadership and accused them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[18026,49,48,30878,258291,75,9489,258166,258292,348],"class_list":["post-712077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-60-minutes","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cbs-news","tag-cbs-ownership","tag-entertainment","tag-paramount","tag-scott-pelley","tag-scott-pelley-firing","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712077","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=712077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}