CBS News fired veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley on Tuesday — just one day after he stood up at a staff meeting and accused the show’s new executive producer Nick Bilton of being unqualified and told CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss to her face that she was murdering the most trusted news program in American television history.
Pelley fired back after his termination saying 60 Minutes has lost its DNA entirely — and alleged that executives had pressured him to inject falsehoods, bias and unverified claims into his stories, saying he deflected every single one of those efforts. Weiss told CBS staff she had tried to find a way back with Pelley but could not — and Pelley responded by saying that was simply not true and that at no point during the meeting where he was effectively fired did anyone suggest a single step toward resolution. He spent 37 years building 60 Minutes into something America trusted. It took Bari Weiss less than a week to make him walk out the door forever.