Scott Pelley on the Bari Weiss Era and His Last Days at ‘60 Minutes’ (original) (raw)
Magazine|Scott Pelley on the Bari Weiss Era and His Last Days at ‘60 Minutes’
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/07/magazine/scott-pelley-interview.html
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The Interview
Credit...Photo illustration by The New York Times
The Interview
Scott Pelley on the Bari Weiss Era and His Last Days at ‘60 Minutes’
Credit...Photo illustration by The New York Times
- Published June 7, 2026Updated June 9, 2026
It’s hard to overstate the impact of “60 Minutes” on journalism. It’s the most-watched television-news program in America. Since its debut on CBS in 1968, it’s been the home of some of the most-storied broadcast journalists, from Mike Wallace and Ed Bradley to Lesley Stahl, Anderson Cooper and, until this past week, Scott Pelley.
Pelley, who was at the network for 37 years, including as White House correspondent, anchor of the “CBS Evening News” and “60 Minutes” correspondent, was fired after an explosive series of events and much turmoil over the past few years at CBS. These events include a controversial financial settlement with President Trump over a “60 Minutes” segment; the sale of the network to David Ellison; and the appointment of Bari Weiss, a former New York Times Opinion staffer and founder of The Free Press with no television-news experience, to lead CBS News.
Pelley’s firing came after Weiss dismissed several of his colleagues and hired a new “60 Minutes” boss, Nick Bilton, whom Pelley then clashed with in a staff meeting. Pelley, along with a number of other “60 Minutes” correspondents who were fired, have now accused Weiss of editorial interference and bias, charges that CBS News and Weiss deny.
In his first sit-down interview since he was fired, Pelley told me about the specific incident he viewed as interference, about his experiences at CBS News over the past weeks and months, and about what he hopes will come of this very tumultuous time at the network where he spent most of his career.
Video
Scott Pelley on the Bari Weiss Era and His Last Days at CBS News
In his first sit-down interview since he was fired from CBS News, Scott Pelley tells Lulu Garcia-Navarro about his experiences at the network over the past weeks and months.
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A few days before your firing, several high-profile “60 Minutes” correspondents and leaders were fired . Leading up to that, there’d been a lot of reporting about changes that were coming to the show. Was that the sort of change you were expecting? No one saw the Black Thursday massacre coming. This is our entire senior staff. Tanya Simon, our boss, she’s the first woman ever to be executive producer of “60 Minutes.” And she concluded this season with a growth in our audience of nine percent, which is unheard-of in broadcast television, and a growth of our online presence of 190 percent. Last season, we had 2.5 billion views. That’s a third of humanity! So we’re riding high.
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