Veteran journalist Scott Pelley is poised to conclude his remarkable 37-year tenure at CBS News and the esteemed program 60 Minutes, following a contentious dispute with the network’s new leadership.
During a tense all-staff meeting on Monday, the 68-year-old Pelley confronted newly appointed executive producer Nick Bilton, questioning his qualifications for the role.
As reported by Puck, The Guardian, The New York Times, and Status, Pelley criticized Bilton’s experience, creating a stir among the news team.
On Tuesday, Pelley engaged in a meeting with CBS News executives at 5 p.m. ET to explore potential solutions after the discord during the 60 Minutes meeting, according to Puck’s coverage.
Despite efforts to reconcile, the discussions did not yield a resolution, making it increasingly likely that Pelley may either resign or be dismissed. A source has confirmed this to CNN, although no final decision has been made yet.
Pelley, who began his career with CBS News in 1989, served as the chief White House correspondent from 1997 to 1999 before becoming a prominent figure on 60 Minutes.
The Daily Mail has reached out to CBS News for comment.
Bilton, a former New York Times columnist, replaced longtime executive Tanya Simon on Thursday. Pelley also peppered Bilton with questions about the day’s firings, asking where his loyalties lie.
Scott Pelley is set to end his 37-year run at CBS News and 60 Minutes following a blowup between the star reporter and his new bosses
Pelley, 68, tore into the show’s newly minted executive producer Nick Bilton (pictured) during a ‘tense’ all-hands meeting Monday morning
Bilton, 49, responded by attempting to move the discussion along. He suggested the conversation would be better held in private, Puck reported.
Pelley countered that he would prefer to settle the matter then and there, in front of his colleagues. Bilton told Pelley, ‘They’re my colleagues too.’
Pelley reportedly replied, ‘That remains to be seen.’
The conversation grew so tense that Bilton eventually had to tell Pelley that he would not be ‘intimidated.’
CBS’ managing editor, Charles Forelle, also had to step in twice to say Pelley was being ‘rude’, the outlets reported.
Pelley kicked off the 10am meeting by claiming CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss had ‘no qualifications for her job’ and was ‘murdering 60 Minutes.’
Weiss was installed as CBS News’s editor-in-chief in October.
‘So why should we expect any of this is going to be any better?’ Pelley asked, turning to Bilton.
On Tuesday, Pelley ‘had a meeting with CBS News leadership at 5pm ET to discuss a path forward after his protest in 60 Minutes all-hands’ and found no common ground
The network continues to experience upheaval under new chief Bari Weiss (pictured)
Pelley proceeded to pick apart comments the producer gave to the press after Bilton’s appointment was announced on Thursday.
Bilton drew similarities between his and 60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt’s original vision for the program, when it was founded in 1968.
‘Did you at any point work with Don Hewitt, telling everybody about what Don Hewitt thought, and what his inspiration was?’ Pelley asked, before again questioning Bilton’s qualifications.
‘I worked for Don Hewitt from 1999 to 2004 and Lesley Stahl probably worked with him for 30 years. Just wondering how you have such deep insight?’ he asked.
Bilton responded by asking whether Pelley had any more questions. Pelley said that he did, turning to Thursday’s firings.
The first question referenced the firing of correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, an 11-year vet who clashed with executives over a report critical of the Trump administration late last year. Pelley asked ‘what was wrong with’ her, according to Status.
This is a developing story.
Bilton – who is only the fifth executive producer in 60 Minutes history – said he would ‘defer.’
Stahl and Pelley’s futures at CBS News are uncertain. Above, with the rest of the 60 Minutes team before the cuts on Thursday. Only Pelley, Bill Whitaker, Stahl, and L Jon Wertheim remain after Anderson Cooper (right) left in April
‘This is not the crowd to dodge,’ Pelley pressed. ‘Nobody talked to you about that?’
‘They’re taking one of your correspondents away and nobody mentioned to you what was wrong with Sharyn?’ he continued.
Bilton acknowledged he ‘had conversations with people’ but would not elaborate, according to Status.
Pelley asked what was said during those talks. ‘They are private conversations?’ he asked, according to Status.
Bilton responded by reiterating that he ‘did not fire’ Alfonsi or Cecilia Vega, the other 60 Minutes correspondent who was cut on Thursday.
Pelley – who already shocked audiences with a rogue monologue criticizing Paramount after the departure of then-executive producer Bill Owens early last year – shot back that Bilton must have still been involved in those talks to some degree.
Forelle, at this point, reprimanded Pelley for ‘rude’ behavior, saying that his line of questioning was ‘not actually productive.’ Bilton told the journalist: ‘This is not an interview.’
‘It’s working for me,’ Pelley reportedly replied.
Former executive producer Bill Owens (left) and former CBS News chief Wendy McMahon (second left) both left the network last year, in protest of a purported change in editorial direction under parent company Paramount. Above, with Vega (second right) and Pelley
Cecilia Vega (middle) was one of several 60 Minutes staffers fired Thursday. Sharyn Alfonsi (far left) and executive producer Tanya Simon were also shown the door
The former CBS Evening News host went on to ask Bilton ‘what was wrong with’ Draggan Mihailovich, the other top producer fired on Thursday. Pelley repeatedly referred to the day’s events as ‘Black Thursday.’ He slammed its execution as ‘cruel.’
Forelle, at this point, again accused Pelley of being ‘rude’, according to Status.
Pelley argued, ‘I’m not being rude… You know what was rude? Black Thursday. That was the absolute definition of rudeness,’ the media news website reported.
‘Telling Tanya Simon she had to be out of here at five o’clock. Sending Draggan Mihailovich to HR to get fired, because nobody could look him in the eye. Not talking about Tanya’s contract.
‘Not talking about Sharyn Alfonsi’s contract. Not talking about Cecilia Vega’s contract. Just calling them up and telling them they were fired,’ Pelley vented.
‘That’s rude. This is a conversation. That is rude, and you were part of that.’
Not present for the tirade was Weiss, whom Bilton proposed Pelley meet separately. He added: ‘What I would like to do right now is talk about what happens next.’
Bilton maintained that people being considered ‘are not going to be new correspondents that have never done this before’ – before being met with laughter from the famously tight-knit 60 Minutes team.
‘You have no idea what my plans are, so I will present those plans to you. I will present them when the time is right,’ Bilton said in response.
Pelley, however, was not through with Bilton, who replaced a 25-year TV veteran in Simon, at Weiss’s behest.
‘Here’s a question: Were you aware of how Black Thursday was going to play out?’ Pelley asked, per Status. ‘I find it odd that you would take this job knowing that you would never be welcomed here.’
Bilton reportedly answered: ‘I have no problem taking a job in a place that I am not welcome, OK? I don’t believe that will be the case.’
‘I have been a journalist for 25 years, Scott. I have sat and talked with incredibly powerful people like you have,’ he continued.
‘None of it intimidates me, OK? So you are not going to intimidate me in front of this group of people.’
Pelley asked Bilton whether his decision to take the job ‘show[ed] good judgment.’
‘Yes, it does,’ Bilton replied. He said that he was there ‘to ensure that what happened to TIME magazine and all of these other institutions does not happen here.’
‘Well, we feel protected,’ Pelley quipped. ‘That’s great. Thank you.’
The meeting – and Pelley’s outburst – ended there. Bilton thanked his staff for ‘graciously being so welcoming’ during what was meant to be a formal introduction. Recordings of the event were quickly obtained by several news outlets.
Absent from the meeting was Anderson Cooper, who had already left the program in April ahead of his contract’s expiration. The move was at least in part because of the show’s recent direction under Weiss, Status reported.
Stahl – another 60 Minutes long-timer – is also mulling an exit from CBS after being passed over for a recent sit-down with Benjamin Netanyahu, sources told Status earlier this year.
Owens and former CBS News chief Wendy McMahon both resigned ahead of Paramount’s then-pending merger with Skydance last summer, citing corporate overreach they said was already present before Ellison’s ascent to CEO at a post-merger Paramount in July.
‘They’re killing 60 Minutes,’ Owens similarly told Status of the changes seen from Weiss on Thursday.
Vega told the New York Times she was fired because she refused to tailor her stories to be politically biased.
She, Cooper, and Alfonsi were all part of a group of 60 Minutes correspondents who demanded that CBS name the show’s next executive producer following Owens’s exit in April last year.
Simon – the daughter of legendary 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon – received the job on a temporary basis in July.
Ellison, at the time, articulated a vision of the prime Paramount asset reaching more people across the country and moving into the digital age.
CBS has since been subject to an overhaul that started with Weiss’s appointment in October.
Bilton’s hiring was billed as being in line with that vision, as he is a tech and culture columnist fluent in topics like AI.
‘He has been consistently prescient about the ways that the technological revolution that we’re living through is upending the way that we consume storytelling and information,’ Weiss told the Times last week.
‘He has been the one to see the tsunami before the wave hits the rest of us.’
Like Weiss, Bilton is seen as an outsider due to his lack of broadcast experience.
Sources recently told CNN that in her first six months as news chief, Weiss saw 60 Minutes ‘as calcified and resistant to change.’
