Scott Pelley Said ’60 Minutes’ Leadership Told Him to Include ‘Falsehoods’ in Political Stories

Longtime 60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley recently lost his position with the program after criticizing new leadership at CBS News. In a statement after his firing, Pelley took issue with the direction CBS News is going in. He said that management has pushed him to include false information in his political reporting.

Scott Pelley is no longer with ‘60 Minutes’

On a staff call with the employees of CBS News, editor in chief Bari Weiss said that Pelley was fired after a contentious meeting with executive producer Nick Bilton.

“I know I speak for myself, and I hope I speak for everyone here, when I say that I’m only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect,” Weiss said (via Variety). “We cannot do our work without it. That foundation was broken on Monday, and 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.”

After Weiss’s comments became public, Pelley accused her of lying about what happened.

“I’m saddened to see the transcript of the CBS News morning editorial meeting,” Pelley said in a statement. “Bari 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 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.”

Scott Pelley made a statement about his firing from ‘60 Minutes’

Pelley has been with 60 Minutes for years. He made a statement about the changes at the news program. Weiss has made a number of changes since she became editor in chief. Pelley accused new leadership of catering to the Trump administration.

“60” has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories,” he said in a statement after his firing. “When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration. The waste is heartbreaking.”

He claimed that they have gone so far as to ask him to include false information and biases in political reporting.

“For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story,” he said. “I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them.”

He also criticized the way management has run the newsroom.

“Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast,” he said. “Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.”

He also said he feels gratitude for his co-workers and his audience

Pelley thanked the viewers of 60 Minutes in his statement.

“At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon,” he said. “We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to ‘keep up the good fight.’”

While he is not happy with the program now, he said he is grateful for the people who work there.

“I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion — a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives,” he wrote. “I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again — a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.”