In a meeting held Monday, Pelley lashed out at Bilton and current CBS News management, according to multiple press reports, alleging that Bari Weiss, the CBS News Editor in Chief who orchestrated an overhaul of the program last week, is “murdering ’60 Minutes.” Pelley also alleged that Weiss held “no qualifications for her job” and said Bilton that he has “slender qualifications for this job.”
Bilton has suggested that he’d like the program to generate even more content. “The show is on the air one day, one night, one hour a week, and to me there is an incredible opportunity to take the show and do a lot of things with it,” he told Variety last week. Bilton is replacing Tanya Simon, a longtime senior steward of the show and a daughter of one of its former correspondents, Bob Simon. Her deputy, Draggan Mihailovich, was also ousted, along with two of the show’s correspondents, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega.Pelley also demanded to know why CBS News fired former Simon, Alfonsi and Vega, asking Bilton “why should we expect any of this is going to be any better?” Status reported that Bilton attempted to deflect the queries and wound up ending the meeting prematurely. Charles Forelle, a new CBS News senior editor, recently hired by Weiss from The Wall Street Journal, told Pelley several times he was being “rude,” according to Status, which reported the remarks based on an audio transcript of the meeting it obtained.
