Scott Pelley posted a photo of himself at the helm of a sailboat on Saturday. The caption was brief. "To all of you who have been so kind, you are the wind in my sails," he wrote. "So deeply grateful."
The message came days after Pelley was fired from 60 Minutes, the newsmagazine he had worked for over many years. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the termination came Tuesday, following a confrontation with new executive producer Nick Bilton on Monday in which Pelley accused CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss of destroying the program.
Pelley told Bilton that Weiss is "murdering 60 Minutes. She does not love this place; she was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that." Bilton responded by ending Pelley's employment. "Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear," Bilton wrote in a termination letter. "And I have heard you. I therefore write on behalf of CBS News to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately."
After the firing was announced, Pelley released a public statement accusing Weiss of "incompetence and unprofessionalism." He also claimed that CBS News management "instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story." In a separate interview with the New York Times, he described Weiss as "cold and callous and beneath the dignity of CBS News" and said he was pressured by senior managers to put political bias into his stories during the current season.
Pelley also told the Times: "I have been in combat in Afghanistan. I have been in combat in Iraq. I have been in the war zone in Ukraine multiple times, risking my life and the happiness of my family because of my devotion to the broadcast."
In a statement posted after the termination was announced, Pelley wrote that "60 has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration."
Weiss pushed back during a Wednesday morning call with CBS News staff. "Before we get into it, I need to address what's transpired in our newsroom over the past two days and what is making news," she told staff. "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. We cannot do our work without it." She added that "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."
Pelley's firing was not an isolated event. It followed the earlier dismissal of executive producer Tanya Simon and correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi. Those departures raised immediate questions about whether the three remaining correspondents, Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and Jon Wertheim, would also leave.
On Friday, all three confirmed they would stay. "We feared that our returning might be construed as an endorsement of the existing power structure. That is simply, categorically not the case," they wrote in a memo to staff. "Here's why we are staying: We don't want to see 60 Minutes die."
