Top of the Ticker: The ongoing saga revolving around 60 Minutes continues to take new twists as Scott Pelley opened up about the type of interference he allegedly experienced from CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss while still employed at the Sunday news program.
In a lengthy interview with The New York Times, Pelley said that earlier this year, when he was working on a report about the ICE protests in Minneapolis, he, through his former executive producer Tanya Simon, received some notes from Weiss to make the protesters look more violent and also describe Renee Good’s car as “driving toward the officer.”
Pelley described these situations as examples of political influence, noting that Weiss’s directive was aimed at putting “a thumb on the scale for the president’s version of events.”
CBS News denied Pelley’s claims, telling the Times that there was “no credible argument” that Weiss was trying to exert political influence.
In that piece, Pelley also said he believes Weiss should be removed from her position, that CBS News “is on fire,” and called for executives at Paramount Skydance to course-correct what is happening at the network, hoping for “a return to sanity.”
Meanwhile, in a joint letter, Lesley Stahl, Jon Wertheim, and Bill Whitaker said they will remain with the Sunday newsmagazine program because they “don’t want to see 60 Minutes die.”
They were critical of the newly installed leaders at 60 Minutes and CBS News, saying they were “deeply upset” by the dismissal of former executive producer Simon and her deputies. They defended their former correspondents, including Pelley, saying that newsrooms should not be run as dictatorships but should be places where collaboration and argument always have a place. In the letter, they cited the ethos of former 60 Minutes leader Don Hewitt, who encouraged “loud passionate advocacy for our pieces.”
