By
Charlotte Klein,
a features writer and media columnist at New York Magazine
Scott Pelley, the longtime 60 Minutes correspondent, was fired on Tuesday, a day after confronting Nick Bilton, the program’s new leader, in spectacularly aggressive fashion in front of all their colleagues. Pelley met with Bilton and Bari Weiss on Tuesday afternoon, per a source familiar with the matter. In a termination letter to Pelley later that evening, Bilton lamented that Pelley had chosen to “ambush” him with “a performative display of hostility.” He added, “Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear.”
Pelley sealed his fate during a contentious meeting on Monday between the 60 Minutes staff and Bilton, audio recordings of which were obtained by multiple news outlets. Bilton was named executive producer of 60 Minutes last week, on the same day his predecessor, Tanya Simon, who had been with the program for more than three decades, was fired. Correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi were also fired, as were Draggan Mihailovich, the show’s executive editor, and producers Guy Campanile and Matthew Poelvoy. The staff had taken to calling the culling “Black Thursday.”
