Michael M. Grynbaum and Benjamin Mullin, The New York Times; Scott Pelley Accuses CBS News Boss of ‘Murdering’ ‘60 Minutes’
"CBS News faced a fresh wave of turmoil on Monday after Scott Pelley, the “60 Minutes” correspondent, laced into the show’s newly hired executive producer during a staff meeting and accused Bari Weiss, the network’s editor in chief, of “murdering” the longstanding Sunday news program.
In an extraordinary exchange, Mr. Pelley, his newscaster’s baritone sometimes shaking in anger, told Nick Bilton, the new executive producer, that he had “slender” qualifications for his new job and questioned the network’s commitment to the future of the program, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The New York Times.
The 10 a.m. gathering, held at the program’s Midtown Manhattan headquarters, was intended as a formal introduction to Mr. Bilton, a tech journalist and filmmaker who was appointed last week as part of a major shake-up at “60 Minutes.” CBS fired Tanya Simon, the previous executive producer, and her deputy, along with Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, two of the show’s correspondents — an event that Mr. Pelley referred to as “Black Thursday.”
The meeting quickly turned tense — not a surprise after months of strain between veteran journalists at “60 Minutes” and Ms. Weiss, an opinion journalist who was a longtime critic of legacy media institutions before she became the head of one last year. She was appointed by David Ellison, a tech scion who took control of CBS’s parent company Paramount in a multibillion-dollar merger...
Ms. Weiss’s handling of “60 Minutes” has generated internal turmoil for months.
In December, she pulled a segment reported by Ms. Alfonsi, about the brutal treatment of migrants in a Salvadoran prison, saying that it needed more reporting. The segment was critical of the Trump administration, and Ms. Alfonsi said the decision was “political.” The piece ultimately aired with some additional comments from the Trump administration."
