In his first interview since being fired from 60 Minutes last week, Scott Pelley opened up about the events leading up to his dismissal and called for the removal of CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss.
Speaking to The New York Times, Pelley opened up about last week’s staff turmoil, which saw the ousting of executive producer Tanya Simon and two of her top deputies, with tech journalist Nick Bilton brought in to succeed her. Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega also were ousted. Pelley called these events “the Black Thursday massacre,” noting that the most recent season under Simon, who has been at CBS News for 25 years, had seen a ratings boost and also grown its online presence by 190 percent. He added that the firings they came the day after he and Simon attended the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, where they won two trophies.
“Within hours, all of those people have been wiped out, and one-third of our correspondents have been fired,” Pelley said. “At the same moment, we are informed of our new executive producer. His name is Nick Bilton. I’m sure he must be a wonderful man, but no one had ever heard of him. He has zero experience in television news and no experience in management. So imagine how we feel when someone like that comes into a shop like 60 Minutes.”
