CBS Information fired Scott Pelley on Tuesday, he stated, jettisoning one of many community’s best-known journalists in a conflict over the way forward for “60 Minutes,” the nation’s top-rated information program.
Mr. Pelley, 68, a “60 Minutes” correspondent and a former anchor of “CBS Night Information,” joined the community in 1989. At a workers assembly on Monday, he accused the community’s editor in chief, Bari Weiss, of “murdering ‘60 Minutes,’” citing the ouster final week of this system’s management crew and two on-air correspondents.
“Now we have parted methods with Scott Pelley,” Nick Bilton, the tech journalist who was employed final week as the brand new “60 Minutes” government producer, wrote in a memo to the present’s workers on Tuesday night time.
CBS Information declined to remark. In a proper letter to Mr. Pelley, which was obtained by The New York Occasions, Mr. Bilton wrote that the correspondent had been “terminated for trigger efficient instantly.”
Mr. Pelley, in a phone interview shortly after he was fired, stated he had devoted a long time of his life to “60 Minutes,” which he stated he nonetheless cared about deeply.
“I’ve been in fight in Afghanistan,” Mr. Pelley stated. “I’ve been in fight in Iraq. I’ve been within the struggle zone in Ukraine a number of instances, risking my life and the happiness of my household due to my devotion to the printed.”
The choice to fireside Mr. Pelley will nearly actually spike the tensions which have coursed via CBS Information for months, and inside “60 Minutes” particularly.
It additionally raises the stakes of Ms. Weiss’s determination to switch the management crew at “60 Minutes,” CBS Information’s most profitable franchise, and rent Mr. Bilton to supervise the present. This system’s viewership was up 9 p.c this previous season from a yr prior, and the present is routinely among the many nation’s highest-rated weekly broadcasts, in keeping with Nielsen.
It is a creating story. Examine again for updates.
