{"id":837633,"date":"2026-06-01T21:40:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T21:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/837633\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T21:40:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T21:40:31","slug":"scott-pelley-accuses-bari-weiss-of-murdering-60-minutes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/837633\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Pelley Accuses Bari Weiss Of “Murdering” ’60 Minutes’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAmid a wave of firings at 60 Minutes<\/a>, longtime correspondent Scott Pelley<\/a> accused CBS News<\/a> editor in chief Bari Weiss<\/a> of \u201cmurdering\u201d the show, while he questioned her qualifications and that of the top rated newsmagazine\u2019s new executive producer, Nick Bilton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tPelley\u2019s comments came during a staff meeting in which Bilton, named to the post last week, was introducing himself. Bilton was joined by Charles Forelle, the CBS News managing editor and a member of Weiss\u2019 leadership team, but Weiss herself was not there, according to a source familiar with the meeting.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe New York Times and Status, which obtained audio of the meeting, reported that Bilton explained his approach to the show, but pushed back on some of the rumors about his plans. A source confirmed aspects of the meeting.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe rumors people are spreading, that I\u2019m going to turn the show into 60 one-minute episodes, that it\u2019s going to be like TikTok, that is not changing. The show is going to stay exactly like it is for now,\u201d Bilton said, per the Times. He also defended Weiss, telling the staff that she \u201cloves 60 Minutes.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Pelley responded, \u201cShe is murdering 60 Minutes. She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it, and she\u2019s been doing exactly that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cShe has no qualifications for her job; you have slender qualifications for this job. The changes that she\u2019s made at the Evening News have been catastrophic, so why should we expect that any of this is going to be any better?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBilton replaced Tanya Simon, a 60 Minutes veteran who was named executive producer last year. Also let go were Draggan Mihailovich, executive editor of the show, and two correspondents, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega.<\/p>\n

\n\tPelley also confronted Bilton over the firings of Alfonsi and Vega, and at one point asked him why he took the job \u201cknowing that you will never be welcome here,\u201d per the Times.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI have no problem taking a job in a place that I am not welcome in. I don\u2019t think that will be the case,\u201d Bilton said, per the audio. <\/p>\n

\n\tAt one point, Forelle accused Pelley of being rude, to which the correspondent said, \u201cI\u2019m not being rude. You know what was rude? Black Thursday was rude.\u201d The firings took place last Thursday.<\/p>\n

\n\tA spokesperson for CBS News declined to comment. Pelley has not yet commented on the meeting.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe exchange quickly reverberated throughout the network news division, which has gone through layoffs and staff exits since Skydance acquired Paramount last year. The CEO of the newly merged company, David Ellison, tapped Weiss, the founder of The Free Press, to lead the news division. Weiss does not have broadcast news experience, but has outlined a strategy that emphasized the need to great accelerate the move to digital and streaming. That was also cited as a reason for hiring Bilton, a tech journalist who has worked for The New York Times and Vanity Fair.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat seems to have surprised the new owners and management is the level of pushback amid the changes, and the cuts at 60 Minutes, per the Times. The show is among the top rated shows in all of broadcast TV, and its team dedicated to long-form storytelling has for years been treated as a separate, and even more independent, part of the news division. <\/p>\n

\n\tBilton has said that he planned to meet with staffers on the show on a one-to-one basis. Per the Times, he said in the meeting that Pelley would not \u201cintimidate\u201d him by bringing his criticisms up in an all-staff setting. Since the Thursday firings, CBS News executives are said to have reached out to Pelley, but he did not reply, according to sources. The Guardian first reported on the Monday meeting.<\/p>\n

\n\tPelley spoke out on the show after Bill Owens, its longtime executive producer, resigned last year, saying he was no longer able to make \u201cindependent decisions\u201d about the show. \u201cNone of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he had lost the independence that honest journalism requires,\u201d Pelley said.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn December, Pelley told <\/a>a USC event that the show had received \u201cno corporate interference of any kind\u201d from the new owners. <\/p>\n

\n\tLater that month, though, Weiss held one of Alfonsi\u2019s segments, on the CECOT prison in El Salvador and the migrants who were sent there by the Trump administration. Weiss said that the piece was \u201cnot ready,\u201d but Alfonsi objected that the decision to hold it was a \u201cpolitical one,\u201d and was held up because the Trump administration refused to participate. \u201cTheir refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver destined to kill the story,\u201d Alfonsi wrote at the time.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe story did run a month later, with some revisions to Alfonsi\u2019s introduction and postscript, but the piece itself was unchanged.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe night before the changes to 60 Minutes were announced, Pelley appeared at the News & Documentary Emmy ceremony and, in his remarks, noted the presence of Alfonsi, amid reports that her contract would not be renewed with the show. After Pelley presented the Mike Wallace Memorial Scholarship to student journalist Santiago Campos, Campos called out the recent direction of CBS, saying it \u201cstains\u201d the legacy of Wallace.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter Campos\u2019 remarks, Pelley praised him. \u201cGod, we need young people like you right behind us. Thank you, God bless you. I know that Mike Wallace is looking down at you with pride at this very moment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amid a wave of firings at 60 Minutes, longtime correspondent Scott Pelley accused CBS News editor in chief…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":837634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[9],"tags":[15327,127560,26871,36555,171,340205,27598,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-837633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-60-minutes","tag-bari-weiss","tag-cbs-news","tag-electionline","tag-entertainment","tag-nick-bilton","tag-scott-pelley","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116677026044195720","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=837633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}