In a remarkable sign of the turmoil at CBS’s top-rated 60 Minutes, correspondent Scott Pelley said CBS News head Bari Weiss was “murdering the show” and accused its new producer of having “slender qualifications” for the job, according to reports.
Pelley made his accusations in an introductory meeting Monday between the news magazine’s staff and Nick Bilton, the new executive producer named by Weiss last week, according to a detailed report on the Status website, which said it had heard a recording of the meeting. Weiss herself was not present, according to the report. Status specialises in media news and analysis.
Status reported that Pelley, the longtime 60 Minutes correspondent, began grilling Bilton at the 10am meeting about the firings last week of Bilton's predecessor, Tanya Simon, and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. Status also reported that Pelley told Bilton, a former technology journalist and filmmaker with no traditional broadcast news experience, that his qualifications for the position were “slender”.
Pelley also charged, according to Status, that Weiss herself had “no qualifications for her job,” and said the changes she had made to CBS Evening News, which Pelley once anchored, “have been catastrophic.”
