NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 \u201cThis is \u201860 Minutes,\u2019\u201d Harry Reasoner announced on Sept. 24, 1968, introducing his new CBS News show alongside fellow correspondent Mike Wallace. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a magazine for television.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cWe do think this is sort of a new approach.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than a half-century and 58 seasons later, that same term \u2014 \u201cnew approach\u201d \u2014 is being deployed by CBS News leader Bari Weiss to explain her sweeping changes at the most renowned news program in TV history: firing the top producer and two correspondents, among others, and installing a new chief with no TV broadcast experience. Now, one of the show\u2019s most famous faces, Scott Pelley, is gone too \u2014 fired after a tense confrontation with bosses.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe realize, of course, that new approaches are not always instantly accepted,\u201d Reasoner said on that night in 1968. And Weiss\u2019 \u201cnew approach\u201d has been greeted with biting criticism from some corners. Moreover, the turmoil has become a top news story in itself, with competing narratives flying \u2014 none of them flattering to CBS News.<\/p>\n The essential question percolating on Wednesday: Where does \u201c60 Minutes\u201d go from here? Can it stop being the story, get back to work and retain its reputation for probing journalism and its legendary success atop the news food chain? Or is its famous ticking timer, as some fear, literally running out?<\/p>\n To one prominent analyst of TV news, it seemed Wednesday that something had already evaporated \u2014 if only, perhaps, a long-held perception that \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d which manages to be both old-school and pugnacious, was something essentially untouchable.<\/p>\n \u201cMy first response is, it started in 1968 \u2014 not a bad run,\u201d said Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University\u2019s Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture. \u201cBecause it really does look like this is systematically deconstructing what (the show) was.”<\/p>\n But, he quickly added: \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re writing the obituary of \u201860 Minutes.’ I think there\u2019s just too much value and voltage built into that brand.\u201d <\/p>\n He felt, though, that there were concerning signs. The show is suddenly down four correspondents. Three have been dismissed, including Pelley, and Anderson Cooper is leaving of his own accord. There have also been unsettling accusations launched by Pelley. \u201cNew management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story,\u201d the correspondent and former evening news anchor contended in a statement Tuesday. \u201cI\u2019ve been told to include assertions that are unverified.\u201d<\/p>\n To Jeff Fager, former<\/a> executive producer of \u201c60 Minutes\u201d and author of a book on the show, a major deficit will be the loss of Pelley himself.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t imagine running \u201860 Minutes\u2019 without Scott,\u201d said Fager, author of \u201cFifty Years of 60 Minutes: The Inside Story of Television\u2019s Most Influential News Broadcast.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHis is the most remarkable body of work in the history of the broadcast,\u201d Fager said. \u201cIt\u2019s hobbled without him.\u201d<\/p>\n A dizzying week of public airing of dirty laundry continued Wednesday with remarks from Weiss to staff about Pelley\u2019s firing \u2014 and Pelley’s response to those remarks. In a transcript seen by The Associated Press, Weiss began a morning editorial call by saying she was \u201conly interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect.”<\/p>\n \u201cThat foundation was broken on Monday, and despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren\u2019t able to do so, and so we had to part ways,” Weiss said on the call. “We did not want that to happen, but that\u2019s the path that he chose.”<\/p>\n In short order, Pelley countered with his own lengthy description of their meeting. \u201cBari Weiss knows what she said is not true,\u201d he said in a statement posted by New York Times media reporter Ben Mullin.<\/a> \u201cIn the meeting on Tuesday, in which I was effectively fired, there was no effort to \u2018find a way back.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Turmoil had been evident at \u201c60 Minutes\u201d for more than a year,<\/a> after President Donald Trump sued the show over its editing of a 2024 interview<\/a> with then-Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. It became part of a broader upheaval at CBS News after Weiss was named to the new role of editor-in-chief<\/a> by parent company Paramount late last year following David Ellison’s arrival as the network’s corporate leader.<\/p>\n Ellison’s company, Skydance, merged with CBS parent company Paramount<\/a>, which later settled the Trump lawsuit for $16 million, angering some at \u201c60 Minutes” \u2014 and indirectly leading to the departure last month<\/a> of popular CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert, who had called the settlement \u201ca big fat bribe.\u201d<\/p>\n Discord at the show burst into public view last Thursday, when Weiss and CBS News President Tom Cibrowski announced their changes aimed at \u201cbuilding a show that thrives in the 21st century.\u201d<\/p>\n They installed Nick Bilton, a former technology columnist and documentarian, as executive producer, replacing Tanya Simon, a 30-year veteran of the show who\u2019d been in the top job about a year. Also let go were correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi, whose segment about Trump administration deportees in a Salvadoran prison had been abruptly pulled by Weiss before running a month later, and Cecilia Vega.<\/p>\n