Renowned 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley‘s tenure at the newsmagazine has come to an abrupt end after the show’s newly appointed executive producer, Nick Bilton, dismissed him on Tuesday night.
In the termination letter written by Bilton, which has made its way online, Pelley was dismissed from CBS News “for cause, effective immediately.” This comes after the contentious Monday meeting in which Pelley went after both Bilton and CBS News’ editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, with Pelley accusing Weiss of “murdering” 60 Minutes.
“Yesterday’s performative display of hostility—enacted in front of the staff instead of a civil, private conversation—demonstrated that you have no interest in contributing to the future success of the show, or approaching my new tenure with a mind open to collaboration and progress,” Bilton wrote in the termination letter.
He went on to say, “Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear.”
For his part, Pelley released a statement accusing the new CBS News management of currying “a moment of favor with the Trump administration.”
He went on to say the show lost its DNA when its senior leadership and two of its best on-air correspondents, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, were let go: “Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience,” Pelley said.
Pelley described some of the alleged behind-the-scenes meddling he endured. He said he was instructed to include “falsehoods and bias” in politically sensitive stories. He also said that politicians were given the option of choosing which correspondents they wanted for interviews on the broadcast, and one of the stories he was working on “came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.”
“The leadership of 60 Minutes is gone,” Pelley added. “The principles I hold dear are gone, and so, I must leave as well.”
Weiss reportedly addressed Pelley’s dismissal in a Wednesday morning editorial call, saying, “Despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways.”
Pelley has been with CBS News for the past 37 years. In that time, he has won numerous awards as a correspondent for 60 Minutes and has also served as the anchor of CBS Evening News, a role he held from June 2011 to May 2017.
