Scott Pelley fired from ’60 Minutes’ after reportedly saying Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss ‘murdering the show’

CBS News fires longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley, a day after he reportedly said Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss was “murdering the show” and accused its new producer of having “slender qualifications” for the job. The move deepens the turmoil at the nation’s most influential TV news program and the news unit that oversees it.

Pelley had criticized the program’s leadership during a meeting Monday between the show’s staff and Nick Bilton, the new executive producer named by Weiss last week, according to a detailed report on the Status website.

In a termination notice obtained by The Associated Press, Bilton, a former technology journalist and filmmaker with no traditional broadcast news experience, accuses Pelley of carrying out an “ambush” against him.

“Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt,” the letter states.

Pelley’s agent does not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Dylan Byers, a senior correspondent for Puck who covers the media, posts a statement on X that quotes the former CBS News anchor as saying he had been asked to undertake questionable journalism that involved “falsehoods and bias.”

“I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion — a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again,” the statement quotes Pelley as saying.

Status, which said it had heard a recording of the Monday meeting, reports that Pelley grilled Bilton about the firings last week of Bilton’s predecessor, Tanya Simon, and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. He also allegedly said that Weiss, who was not present at the meeting, was brought in to kill the news outlet, “and she’s doing exactly that.”

In the dismissal letter, Bilton says Pelley’s “performative display of hostility” demonstrates that he has “no interest in contributing to the future success of the show.”