{"id":721479,"date":"2026-06-07T18:45:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T18:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/721479\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T18:45:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T18:45:13","slug":"scott-pelley-speaks-cbs-news-is-on-fire-and-bari-weiss-should-be-removed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/721479\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Pelley speaks: \u2018CBS News is on fire\u2019 and Bari Weiss should be removed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Scott Pelley says \u201cCBS News is on fire\u201d and the news division\u2019s editor in chief Bari Weiss should be removed from her job.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cMy hope is that the leadership of Paramount will say to themselves, this isn\u2019t working,\u201d Pelley said in an interview<\/a> with The New York Times, his first since being fired by CBS on June 2.\n <\/p>\n

\n Pelley said he perceived that Weiss was \u201cputting a thumb on the scale\u201d on behalf of the Trump administration during the most recent season of \u201c60 Minutes.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n A CBS News spokesperson said Pelley\u2019s argument is not credible and that there is no political interference at the news organization.\n <\/p>\n

\n The bigger problem, Pelley told The Times, was \u201cnot any kind of political influence. The problem was the incompetence.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The interview, published Sunday morning, affirms that Pelley is not going quietly after the controversial housecleaning at \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d the most watched news program on American television.\n <\/p>\n

\n A spokesperson for Weiss declined CNN\u2019s request for comment about the Pelley interview.\n <\/p>\n

\n At the end of May, Weiss forced out<\/a> executive producer Tanya Simon; several other top producers; and two correspondents, Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi.\n <\/p>\n

\n Simon, who has not spoken publicly about the shakeup, \u201cwas completely blindsided by this,\u201d Pelley said.\n <\/p>\n

\n But a Weiss-led renovation of the program had been rumored for months. Weiss, according to people close to her, concluded that the current \u201c60 Minutes\u201d team was resisting necessary change and failing to evolve in the streaming age.\n <\/p>\n

\n On the same day as the firings, Weiss installed an outsider, former tech reporter Nick Bilton, to run the show, further roiling the staff that Pelley described as \u201cheartbroken.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The CBS newsmagazine is famously insular and protective of its culture, and veterans of the program say that\u2019s precisely because its independence and integrity deserve protecting.\n <\/p>\n

\n But people close to Weiss have argued that the show needs outside energy and thinking<\/a>. One of the sources said her efforts are about ensuring \u201cthat \u201960 Minutes\u2019 \u2014 and its DNA of hard-hitting interviews, probing investigations, deep journalism \u2014 is built to survive a changing media landscape.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\t\tScott Pelley on His Firing and the \u2018Massacre\u2019 at \u201860 Minutes\u2019 | The Interview
\n\t\t\"Video<\/p>\n

\n The clash between Weiss and the \u201c60 Minutes\u201d staff has been fueled by mutual distrust and clouded by political drama.\n <\/p>\n

\n CBS parent company Paramount has sought a close relationship with President Donald Trump while seeking the Trump administration\u2019s approval to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, which includes CNN. Some \u201c60 Minutes\u201d veterans have charged that CBS is trying to soften \u201c60 Minutes\u201d to appease Trump, a charge that network spokespeople have rejected.\n <\/p>\n

\n Pelley is now voicing those concerns, too, saying \u201cthere\u2019s a subtle political bias\u201d being pushed by management.\n <\/p>\n

\n During a heated staff meeting last Monday, Pelley described Weiss as \u201cunqualified\u201d and challenged Bilton\u2019s competency, as well.\n <\/p>\n

\n Pelley was terminated the next day,<\/a> with Bilton justifying the firing by saying Pelley\u2019s \u201cperformative display of hostility\u201d showed \u201cyou 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<\/p>\n

\n Pelley told The Times he confronted Bilton because \u201csomebody had to stand up not just for the broadcast but for the people.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Many \u201c60 Minutes\u201d veterans have touted the program\u2019s high ratings to question why Weiss would try to fix something that\u2019s not broken. Pelley called the past season\u2019s 9% ratings growth \u201cunheard-of in broadcast television.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In fact, the ratings for CBS telecasts of NFL regular season football games were up 11%, giving \u201c60 Minutes\u201d a big boost for much of the season.\n <\/p>\n

\n Pelley also challenged the argument that \u201c60 Minutes\u201d has not evolved with the times.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe started our first \u201960 Minutes\u2019 online show, \u201860 Minutes Overtime,\u2019 in 2010,\u201d he said. \u201cI shoot TikTok verticals, or I used to shoot TikTok verticals on every assignment. We\u2019re there. We\u2019re everywhere.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Scott<\/p>\n

\n Weiss has shown little interest in the newsmagazine\u2019s history of experimentation. Her management team, largely comprised of CBS outsiders, has expressed surprise at how outdated some aspects of the news operation have seemed. They have agitated for change \u2014 and the current controversy is a result of that.\n <\/p>\n

\n Pelley told Times interviewer Lulu Garcia-Navarro, who is also a CNN contributor, that Weiss is \u201ca lovely person. And her Free Press organization that she founded has been very successful, she\u2019s proven that. Great for her. But television\u2019s not her thing.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cShe brings an ideology into CBS News where that is just anathema. It\u2019s a terrible fit,\u201d he said. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t know television, she doesn\u2019t understand how it works. She doesn\u2019t have management experience for a large organization like CBS News.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n He added, \u201cThis is like somebody walking up to me and saying, \u2018There\u2019s a 747, there are 400 people on it, we need you to fly it to Paris.\u2019 I\u2019m going to decline because I don\u2019t have a clue.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Garcia-Navarro asked Pelley to elaborate on his recent charge that management \u201cinstructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story\u201d and that he ignored the instruction.\n <\/p>\n

\n The story, he said, was a February 1 report titled \u201cCalls grow for independent probe into Minneapolis shootings.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Pelley said he had worked hard to present a balanced portrait of the ICE crackdown in Minneapolis, where two protesters were fatally shot by federal officers.\n <\/p>\n

\n He said that Weiss sent notes to Simon \u201cabout four hours after our deadline\u201d that urged changes that were aligned with Trump\u2019s portrayal of the shootings.\n <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n Pelley said it felt like \u201ca level of political influence that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n A CBS News spokesperson said the feedback Weiss sent to Simon \u201chad no political motivation and were proposed solely to make the piece as strong, fair, and accurate as possible.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Pelley expressed concern both about the feedback and about its timing, coming just a few hours before airtime, which mirrors Alfonsi\u2019s complaint about Weiss intervening in the airing of her \u201cInside CECOT\u201d report last winter.\n <\/p>\n

\n People close to Weiss have said comments like Pelley\u2019s show a stubborn, insubordinate streak that wouldn\u2019t be tolerated in any work environment.\n <\/p>\n

\n But Pelley\u2019s interview<\/a> indicates that he will continue to defend the newsmagazine\u2019s unique traits in public, seeing this as part of a bigger battle over the future of CBS News.\n <\/p>\n

\n And Pelley continues to receive widespread support. After reading the interview, former \u201c60 Minutes\u201d correspondent Armen Keteyian wrote on X, \u201cIncredible. Scott spoke for everyone in the family, past and present. Every last word.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scott Pelley says \u201cCBS News is on fire\u201d and the news division\u2019s editor in chief Bari Weiss should…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":721480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-721479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721479","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=721479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}