Scott Pelley fired from '60 Minutes,' deepening turmoil at CBS News
[June 03, 2026]
By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM
CBS News fired longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley on
Tuesday, a day after he reportedly said Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss was
“murdering the show” and accused its new producer of having “slender
qualifications” for the job.
The move deepened the turmoil at the nation's most influential TV news
program, days after a leadership overhaul.
Pelley, 68, criticized management Monday during a fiery staff meeting
with Nick Bilton, the program's new executive producer installed by
Weiss last week, according to a detailed report on the Status website.
In a termination notice obtained Tuesday night by The Associated Press,
Bilton, a technology journalist and filmmaker with no traditional
broadcast news experience, accused Pelley of carrying out an “ambush”
against him.
“Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my
qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and
contempt,” the letter states.
Pelley said in a statement that “60 Minutes” has lost its DNA under new
management. He accused them of asking him to “inject falsehoods and
bias” into his work, without sharing specific details.
Pelley is accused of a ‘performative display of hostility’
Status, which said it had a recording of the Monday meeting, reported
that Pelley had said Weiss was brought in to kill the news outlet, “and
she’s doing exactly that.” Weiss was not present for the meeting.
Pelley reportedly grilled Bilton about the firings last week of Bilton’s
predecessor, Tanya Simon, and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia
Vega.
Alfonsi had criticized Weiss last year for postponing a segment about
deportees sent to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador as part of
President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
Pelley said in his statement that those colleagues “stood for fairness
against the forces of political bias.” He also accused CEO David Ellison
of casting aside the show's reputation “apparently to curry a moment of
favor with the Trump administration.” Ellison, an ally of the Republican
president, has owned CBS since 2025, when its parent company, Paramount,
merged with Skydance Media.
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Scott Pelley, anchor of "CBS Evening News," at the CBS Upfront in
New York, May 15, 2013. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)
In the dismissal letter Tuesday, Bilton said Pelley’s “performative
display of hostility” demonstrated that he has “no interest in
contributing to the future success of the show.”
An uneasy stretch for CBS News
Since Weiss took over the network's news operation last October, it
has traveled a bumpy road.
Pelley's termination came just five days after Weiss, who has become
a polarizing figure in the media world since taking the reins, told
staff in a memo that it was time for a “new approach” at the
top-rated newsmagazine.
In the memo, Weiss and CBS News president Tom Cibrowski said their
goal for “60 Minutes” was “building a show that thrives in the 21st
century.” That could include extending the show beyond a 60-minute
broadcast, they said.
“60 Minutes” first aired in 1968 and is the longest-running
prime-time show in TV history. Its investigative journalism and
probing interviews, sometimes with unwilling subjects, have given it
the reputation of uncompromising journalism — precisely the trait
that Pelley said he feared was under assault.
Pelley started working for CBS in 1989. He was its chief White House
Correspondent from 1997 to 1999, during Bill Clinton's presidency,
and anchored “CBS Evening News” from 2011 to 2017. He has won 51
Emmy Awards, according to his CBS bio.
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