“60 Minutes,” a crown jewel of broadcast journalism, is thought for breaking large tales. This week, it has discovered itself on the middle of 1.
Scott Pelley, a longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent and a former anchor of “CBS Night Information,” was fired on Tuesday after a contentious workers assembly the place he admonished administration and criticized the long-running present’s new route.
It was the most recent in a string of staffing modifications and controversies because the community’s guardian firm was acquired final yr and Bari Weiss, a former member of The New York Instances’s opinion workers and a longtime critic of legacy media, was employed to guide the information division.
Right here’s how CBS and “60 Minutes” ended up right here.
CBS’s guardian firm, Paramount, is acquired
The shake-ups at CBS Information started final yr when the media firm Skydance took over Paramount. The $8 billion deal positioned Skydance’s founder, David Ellison, on the helm of a robust media conglomerate.
Mr. Ellison pledged to overtake Paramount. However he was inheriting steep financial challenges and morale issues. A month earlier than the acquisition, Paramount agreed to pay President Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” interview. Many within the CBS newsroom considered the settlement as a low level for the storied tv community.
Mr. Ellison appoints Ms. Weiss to guide CBS Information
In October, Paramount bought the digital news start-up The Free Press and appointed its founder, Ms. Weiss, editor in chief of CBS Information. She was given a mandate to revamp the information division for the digital period.
Ms. Weiss’s first few months on the job had been met with skepticism from workers. She bluntly requested “60 Minutes” journalists why the nation believed they had been biased, employed new on-air contributors and personally booked some friends for interviews, a departure from the trade norm.
In December, Ms. Weiss abruptly postponed a section about Venezuelan males deported by the Trump administration to a “brutal” jail in El Salvador, saying it wanted extra reporting. Sharyn Alfonsi, the veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent who had reported the section, referred to as the transfer “political.” (The section later aired in full, with extra feedback from the Trump administration.)
At her first networkwide meeting in January, Ms. Weiss addressed the bumps of her early tenure and framed the way forward for CBS Information in stark phrases, warning workers that it will be “one hell of a struggle” to maintain tempo in a quickly altering enterprise.
Ms. Weiss names Nick Bilton to guide ‘60 Minutes’ as a part of workers overhaul
Final Thursday, Ms. Weiss named Mr. Biltona former know-how columnist for The Instances and a filmmaker, to exchange Tanya Simon because the present’s government producer.
Mr. Bilton had by no means labored in conventional broadcast information, and his different profession was among the many causes Ms. Weiss was drawn to him, she mentioned. However some members of the “60 Minutes” workers considered Mr. Bilton’s hiring as a sign that the present would drastically change.
Mr. Bilton was appointed amid different personnel modifications on the information journal. Ms. Alfonsi mentioned final month that the community had declined to renew her “60 Minutes” contract. Days later, she and Cecilia Vega, this system’s first Latina correspondent, had been fired.
Ms. Simon, the present’s government producer, who had been at “60 Minutes” for greater than three a long time, and Draggan Mihailovich, the present’s government editor, had been additionally fired, as was Matthew Polevoy, a senior producer.
Anderson Cooper voluntarily left the present after practically 20 years as a correspondent on the finish of the season in Could.
Mr. Pelley clashes with CBS administration
At an explosive staff meeting days after Mr. Bilton was named to his new function, Mr. Pelley advised him that he had “slender {qualifications} for this job” and accused Ms. Weiss of “murdering ‘60 Minutes.’”
On the assembly, which Ms. Weiss didn’t attend, Mr. Pelley mentioned that she had been “introduced in to kill” this system, and that “she’s been doing precisely that.”
The following day, CBS Information fired Mr. Pelley. In a letter to himwhich was obtained by The Instances, Mr. Bilton expressed his frustration with the correspondent’s remarks. “You hijacked my first assembly with workers to disparage me, my {qualifications} and my intentions with outstanding incivility and contempt,” he wrote.
Mr. Pelley assailed the brand new management of CBS Information in an announcement to The Instances, writing that “incompetence and unprofessionalism within the new administration have wreaked havoc on the community.”
Ms. Weiss mentioned throughout a newsroom assembly that the community had fired Mr. Pelley as a result of a “basis” of belief had been damaged.
“I’m solely focused on working in a newsroom that’s constructed on belief and mutual respect,” she mentioned.
Mr. Bilton strikes to allay workers issues
After the general public tumult of Mr. Pelley’s firing, Mr. Bilton moved to reassure his employees by pledging that “60 Minutes” would keep its independence.
This system “won’t ever be instructed by the possession” of CBS Information on its reporting, Mr. Bilton wrote in a memo to the present’s workers.
He additionally vowed to not drastically change the essential format and interior workings of the present, in an effort to handle issues that he may search to overtake this system.
“Sunday night time works,” he wrote. “It’s one of the best hour of tv journalism wherever.”
The following day, the remaining three on-air correspondents mentioned they’d proceed at “60 Minutes.”
The correspondents, Lesley Stahl, Invoice Whitaker and Jon Wertheim, mentioned in an email to employees on Friday that that they had determined to remain after a interval of frustration and grief.
In an interview, Ms. Stahl mentioned their resolution to remain can be reversed if Mr. Bilton didn’t stay as much as his guarantees. “We’re roughly taking his phrase for it,” she mentioned.
Benjamin Mullin and Michael M. Grynbaum contributed reporting.
