Scott Pelley has criticized CBS News Editor in Chief Bari Weiss, accusing her of skewing the network’s reporting to favor former President Donald Trump. He did not mince words, calling for her removal from the position.
In his first interview since leaving 60 Minutes, the 68-year-old journalist condemned his previous supervisor for what he described as ‘incompetence’ and a push to infuse bias into the news outlet’s coverage.
Pelley became emotional while discussing the firing of his former colleague, executive producer Tanya Simon, comparing the experience to the devastating loss of a spouse.
Speaking to the New York Times, Pelley expressed concern over Weiss’s leadership. He claimed, “There was an undue influence favoring the president’s narrative, something unprecedented in my 37 years at CBS News.”
Despite acknowledging Weiss’s success with her Free Press organization, Pelley argued that television was not her forte. He suggested it would have been wiser if she had recognized this and declined the position.
Throughout the candid conversation, Pelley, now enjoying a relaxed boating lifestyle, accused Weiss of steering the network’s coverage to align with the Trump administration’s perspectives.
‘We’re reporting those views. There’s nothing wrong with reporting those views, but it was never enough,’ he told the outlet, recalling that his ‘impression at the time’ was that Weiss was ‘putting a thumb on the scale on behalf of the administration.’
A spokesperson for CBS News, however, told the Times that there is ‘no credible argument to suggest’ that Weiss was tailoring the reporting in favor of the Trump administration ‘in any instance over the past seven months.’
The veteran journalist recalled to the outlet a report on the ICE crackdown in Minneapolis, which included the death of Renee Good.
Scott Pelley held nothing back in his first interview since his firing from 60 Minutes, as he accused his former boss of ‘incompetence’ and attempting to interject bias into the outlet’s news reporting
The scathing interview saw Pelley, who has since shared his carefree boating lifestyle on social media, accuse Weiss of tailoring the network’s reporting in favor of the Trump administration and ‘constantly looking out for the views of the president’
Pelley accused CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss of being unqualified for broadcast television and ‘constantly looking out for the views of the president’
‘Bari Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tanya Simon. Two of the things in the email include, can we make the protestors look more violent? Now, I’m paraphrasing. I don’t have the quote, but that’s what she communicated to me,’ he said.
‘The other thing, Renee Good’s car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer,’ Pelley continued to recall.
Pelley told the New York Times that he argued against the narrative he claimed Weiss was pushing, and said: ‘This is not what you see on the video. On the video, you see the officer standing slightly off the front of the car. And you clearly see Ms Good’s wheels turned completely as far as they’ll go, away from the officer.
‘But he shoots her in the head, kills her and says something about her that I can’t repeat in polite company. We have gone out of our way in our plan from the very beginning to show the protestors for the responsibility that they had.
‘We had scrubbed the video archives, looking for those scenes. Somehow that wasn’t enough for Ms Weiss. The video showed that the officer wasn’t standing in front of the car and she wasn’t driving toward him, but that’s what the president said about that, and that’s the way she wanted it described.’
A CBS spokesperson told the Times, however, that Weiss had made just four points ‘in the course of editorial back-and-forth’ that had ‘no political motivation.’
‘[The notes] were proposed solely to make the piece as strong, fair and accurate as possible. As if frequently the case in any newsroom that operates with collaboration, not everything she raised made it into the final piece,’ the spokesperson said.
However, Pelley said he checked over the piece with his team and made the decision to leave the piece, which was also late, as it was.
The journalist recalled a report on the ICE crackdown in Minneapolis, which included the death of Renee Good, having nearly missed making it to air by 19 minutes due to Weiss’s edits
‘Our deadline was noon. It’s now almost 5 o’clock. That’s dangerous as hell. So I decided that I wouldn’t do those things. I wasn’t going to get in a debate about it. I wasn’t going to call Bari Weiss about it. I was just going to refuse to make those changes,’ he told the outlet.
Pelley added that, he felt, the piece had been ‘abundantly fair’ to both the administration as well as ICE and border patrol officers.
‘It was the interference that’s a problem, especially in a story that’s been approved by the top editors,’ he continued.
‘The problem was the incompetence. You don’t break a deadline.’
Pelley said the segment Weiss had sought to edit ‘came within 19 minutes of not making it to air’ and was set to serve as the lead-in to the Grammys.
‘We almost didn’t have a broadcast… we put the entire network in jeopardy.’
Pelley said that he viewed Weiss as inexperienced, and he and his team on 60 Minutes found it difficult to make up for ‘all these missteps’ in production.
‘It’s been enormously stressful,’ he added.
Pelley said that he viewed Weiss as inexperienced, and he and his team on 60 Minutes found it ‘enormously stressful’ to make up for ‘all these missteps’ in production
Pelley’s firing followed an explosive meeting, where he accused Weiss of ‘murdering 60 Minutes’ in front of staff
Pelley told the outlet that, while other members of his team chose to stay and ‘influence things for the better,’ he believes that trust within the network has been broken.
The journalist’s firing garnered a range of reactions, including the president who said Pelley was part of a group of ‘stupid, crooked people that don’t care about this country.’
‘Stupid? I can take that. Stiff? Yeah, probably. Don’t care about this country? I’ve never worn the uniform, but I’ve been in combat for this country,’ he told the Times, recalling his time in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait.
‘I’ve been shot at, spent nights in foxholes filling up with water in the desert. I’m not aware that the president of the United States has ever done any of those things for his country. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
‘You become a journalist because you love the country. And while all the other descriptions that the president used about me might be applicable, not that one. There is no democracy without journalism. It can’t be done. That is why I’m a journalist.’
Pelley’s firing followed an explosive meeting on Monday, where he accused Weiss of ‘murdering 60 Minutes’ in front of staff before turning to the segment’s new executive producer, Nick Bilton.
Bilton, a filmmaker with no broadcast experience, was declared loyal only to Weiss and unqualified for the position by Pelley in the same meeting.
A recording of the meeting was leaked, and Pelley was fired the very next day. CBS said he was let go for ‘misconduct.’
Weiss claimed that their team had tried to ‘engage with’ Pelley during MOnday’s meeting to ‘find a way back,’ a statement that Pelley refuted
Pelley also accused 60 Minutes’s new executive producer Nick Bilton, a filmmaker with no broadcast experience, of being loyal only to Weiss and unqualified for the position
Weiss told staffers: ‘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. We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose.’
Shortly after Weiss informed Pelley’s co-workers of his departure, Pelley told the Times: ‘Weiss knows what she said is not true. In the meeting on Tuesday, in which I was effectively fired, there was no effort of any kind to ‘find a way back,’ as Weiss had said in the editorial meeting.
‘At no point did anyone in the Tuesday meeting suggest that there could be steps taken by either side that would lead to a resolution.’
He published a new message to Instagram on Saturday, shortly before the Sunday Times interview was announced.
‘To all of you who have been so kind, you are the wind in my sails. So deeply grateful,’ he wrote, referencing an attached photo of him sailing a ship.
Pelley said he hopes that his abrupt departure from CBS will help stoke the fires of change.
‘My hope is that the leadership of Paramount will say to themselves, this isn’t working. We have broadcasts that almost don’t get on the air. We have respected journalists saying that there is a thumb on the scale for one political party over another. We have a broadcast that is among the most important in America. The most successful in the history of all television,’ he said.
‘It was doing great, so why are we making these changes? We need adult supervision and at the moment we don’t have it. We have people who’ve been installed in these jobs who through no fault of their own have no experience in television.
They don’t know what they’re doing. And there’s a subtle political bias that I’ve never seen at 60 Minutes before, or at CBS News before. So that is my hope: a return to sanity. We can save this. It’s possible to land this plane.
‘But right now, CBS News is on fire.’
