CBS fired veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley on Tuesday night, June 2, in a dispute over the direction of the network’s most prestigious news program, NPR reported. The move came one day after Pelley confronted the show’s new executive producer, Nick Bilton, at his first staff meeting, telling him he was unwelcome and unqualified.
Pelley, a former CBS Evening News anchor, said in a statement shared with NPR that the network’s new leadership, including editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, had attempted to intervene in his reporting. “I was told to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story and to include assertions that are unverified,” Pelley said. “That is not what 60 Minutes is. I chose to defend its DNA.”
Weiss, whom David Ellison installed as CBS News editor-in-chief last October after buying the network’s parent company, has dismissed similar allegations from other fired journalists. She said Pelley chose his own path — to be fired rather than work through differences — according to attendees at a meeting the morning after his termination. CBS has not publicly responded to Pelley’s accusations.
Pelley’s firing is the latest in a wave of ousters that has gutted the program. Last week, CBS fired correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi, as well as executive producer Tanya Simon, who had stepped into the role after her predecessor resigned in protest before the Ellison family’s acquisition. Anderson Cooper left the program in February, citing concerns over the network’s direction.
Vega, in a statement after her dismissal, said her team experienced “efforts to insert political bias into our stories,” calling it “censorship, both censorship and self-driven.” CBS said Vega’s claims were “not based in reality.” Weiss previously rejected the allegations of both Alfonsi and Vega.
Bilton, the new executive producer, has a background as a tech reporter for The New York Times and an investigative reporter for Vanity Fair and has produced a Netflix documentary. He has no experience in broadcast television news, a fact that Pelley highlighted in the staff meeting.
The shake-up at 60 Minutes comes as the Ellison family — father Larry and son David — expands its media holdings. After buying Paramount for $8 billion last year, the Ellisons became co-owners of TikTok’s U.S. operations in January. They are now seeking approval from Trump administration regulators for a $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, which would include HBO and CNN.
As part of the Paramount deal, David Ellison made concessions directly to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, including gutting CBS’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and appointing a conservative ombudsman to field bias complaints. The FCC approved the deal last summer.
Three correspondents remain at 60 Minutes: Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim. According to two associates with knowledge of their thinking, they are considering resigning.