And then there were three.
CBS News has terminated “60 Minutes” veteran Scott Pelley after the journalist and executives felt they could not find a way to work together following a heated public argument Monday between Pelley and Nick Bilton, the former tech journalist installed last week by editorial chief Bari Weiss. Pelley is the fourth “60 Minutes” reporter to leave the venerable newsmagazine since February, leaving just a trio — Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim — to handle assignments as the show prepares to get stories ready for its 59th season in the fall.
“Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear,” Bilton said in a letter sent to Pelley Tuesday evening and reviewed by Variety. “And I have heard you. I therefore write on behalf of CBS News to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated effective immediately.”
Pelley could not be reached for immediate comment.
Pelley had lambasted both Bilton and Weiss during a staff meeting Monday, questioning their qualifications to manage a program like “60 Minutes,” which is one of the most respected and most watched news programs in the U.S. And he accused Weiss of “murdering ’60 Minutes.’”
Weiss had indicated last week that she wanted the program “to reach new heights through deep, revelatory journalism that breaks news, exposes wrongdoing, widens public understanding and forces accountability from every institution and every center of power.” Increasingly, however, it is unclear who will be left to accomplish the mission.
CBS News ousted a good chunk of the program’s senior managers last week, including former executive producer Tanya Simon; executive editor Draggan Mihailovich; and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. Anderson Cooper, who has contributed to the show for nearly 20 years, announced his exit in February.
In a memo to staff issued Tuesday evening, Bilton tried to assuage staffers. “I know how much Scott meant to you, and I don’t say this lightly. I made repeated attempts to have direct conversations with him over the weekend, and this afternoon I tried to find common ground. That was not the path Scott chose.”
Bilton said he would offer “unyielding support for each of you, the journalism that you do and what we will do together going forward.”
For many, Pelley was in recent years the heart of the newsmagazine. He had turned in segments on breaking political news as well as an emotional profile on former Senator Ben Sasse and a feature on underworld caverns in Vietnam. In 2021, Pelley presented a deeply reported three-part feature on the firefighters who tried to rescue people in the burning World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, culled from tapes of conversations made available by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Indeed, Pelley has won half of all major awards earned by “60 Minutes” during his tenure, which began in 2004.
He has also been known to viewers in other capacities. Pelley anchored “CBS Evening News” between 2011 and 2017. He joined CBS News in 1989, and started his career in journalism as a copy boy at the Lubbock Avalanche Journal in Texas, near his hometown of San Antonio.
“Journalism has nothing whatever to do with popularity. If we all do our jobs right, we’re probably not going to be very popular with a large segment of our audience. Hopefully, that changes day to day and everybody hears something they like eventually,” Pelley told Variety in 2017. “But, journalism has nothing to do with popularity and so therefore, criticism doesn’t bother me too much.”
Whether Bilton will be able to make longtime “60 Minutes” viewers forget about Pelley this fall remains to be seen.
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