CBS News terminated Scott Pelley from his position at 60 Minutes following a heated confrontation with network leadership over recent staff cuts and editorial direction, according to reporting from the Guardian and other outlets.
Pelley, who joined 60 Minutes in 2004, was fired after clashing with executives during a Monday morning staff meeting. The termination came days after CBS News management dismissed the show's executive producer, executive editor, and two correspondents: Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi. No specific reasons were given for those initial terminations.
During the Monday meeting with newly appointed executive editor Nick Bilton, Pelley directly criticized Bari Weiss, CBS News's editor-in-chief who joined the network in October. "She's murdering 60 Minutes," Pelley said, according to the Guardian. "She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that."
After the meeting, Weiss and other executives met with Pelley on Tuesday and told him his behavior was inappropriate. That same evening, Bilton sent Pelley a termination message stating he was fired "for cause effective immediately." In the message, Bilton cited Pelley's conduct during the staff meeting, writing: "Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt."
Bilton also notified the staff of Pelley's departure, telling them he had made repeated attempts to communicate with Pelley over the weekend and tried to find common ground that afternoon. "That was not the path Scott chose," he wrote in a message obtained by the Guardian.
The firings mark significant changes at 60 Minutes following the Skydance acquisition of CBS parent company Paramount. Pelley had previously announced his satisfaction with the new management in December, stating the show was conducting stories with the same rigor and experiencing no corporate interference. However, nine days later, Alfonsi informed colleagues that Weiss had blocked her story about a prison in El Salvador for what Alfonsi described as "political" reasons, sparking major controversy at the network.
Pelley's departure further depletes 60 Minutes' correspondent roster. With journalist Anderson Cooper leaving earlier this year and now Pelley's termination, the show retains only three full-time correspondents: Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and L Jon Wertheim. CBS News journalist and former evening news anchor Norah O'Donnell contributes to the show.
Pelley first joined CBS News in 1989 and served as chief White House correspondent and anchor of the CBS Evening News from 2011 to 2017. Rome Hartman, a longtime 60 Minutes producer, called Pelley "among the all-time greats of CBS News and of 60 Minutes" and criticized the network's decision to terminate him for pushing back aggressively during a staff meeting.