'60 Minutes' in turmoil after longtime correspondent Scott Pelley is fired

[0:00] CBS News has fired longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley after a contentious [0:05] all-staff meeting in which Pelley reportedly clashed with newly installed executive producer [0:10] Nick Bilton and accused CBS News editor-in-chief Barry Weiss of murdering the storied news [0:15] magazine. Bilton, in a letter firing Pelley yesterday evening, accused him of acting with [0:20] remarkable incivility and contempt. In his own statement, Pelley said, quote, [0:25] The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are [0:30] gone, and so I must leave as well. The firing marks the latest and most dramatic chapter in [0:36] the upheaval surrounding 60 Minutes and CBS News as Weiss moves to reshape both the nation's most [0:42] watched television news magazine and the news division more broadly. For more, we're joined [0:47] now by Steve Croft. He spent 30 seasons as a correspondent for 60 Minutes before retiring [0:52] in 2019. Steve Croft, welcome to the NewsHour. Thank you very much. [0:58] You joined... Nice to be here. I wish different circumstances. [1:00] Yeah, indeed. We should say you joined 60 Minutes back in 1989, spent decades helping make it the [1:06] most respected, most watched news magazine in TV history. As you have watched recent events unfold, [1:12] Scott Pelley's firing, the dismissal of Tanya Simon, the former executive producer, [1:18] the firings of correspondents Sharon Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. What has been going through your mind? [1:23] You know, I think it's been disastrous for the show, you know, for the audience, [1:30] which is not insubstantial. It's been going on for a long time. It began really with an interview [1:37] that Bill Whitaker had done with Kamala Harris, in which CBS was sued for $17 million by the Trump [1:45] administration for what they called an illegal edit. The lawsuit had absolutely no merit, [1:51] yet CBS and its corporate management, Paramount, decided to settle the case for $17 million. [1:58] And since then, it's just been sort of one thing after another. [2:03] The broader context which you're speaking of is important, because CBS News is now [2:08] operating under new ownership as Paramount Skydance seeks approval from Trump regulators to acquire [2:14] Warner Brothers Discovery, which, by the way, also owns CNN. And President Trump, we should say, [2:20] has made no secret of his hostility toward much of the mainstream press. He has called out 60 Minutes [2:26] and CBS News repeatedly. So how much do the larger political and corporate pressures at play [2:32] help explain what's happening right now at 60 Minutes and CBS News? [2:36] I think it perfectly explains it. For Paramount, the parent company, getting these deals done, [2:45] first the permission to merge the two companies from the FCC, and then now, you know, awaiting a [2:56] decision on whether this is going to go through with the FCC and be approved. I think that Paramount has [3:05] just decided that it was going to be that that was the only thing that was important, [3:08] and they were going to try and block anything that might get in the way of that. As Scott Pelley [3:15] said this morning, he asked Barry Weiss, the president of the corporation, why they fired Tanya [3:21] Simon, the executive producer of the show, why they had fired various correspondents [3:26] in the last week. Well, just in one day. And she refused to answer any of the questions, [3:37] which leaves you with what's been said by the president and by his staff and by the chairman [3:46] of the FCC that they don't like the way CBS has been operated. They don't like the fact that it's on [3:52] the air. They would like to see it taken off the air. They've said that a number of times. They like to [3:57] see people fired. And that's what's happened. And yet one could argue every new owner, every new [4:04] management team arrives believing they can improve what they bought, that they can make an institution [4:09] better, even a standout success like 60 Minutes. In this case, though, where is the line between a [4:16] legitimate business decision and journalistic interference? Well, I think that this is [4:22] journalistic interference. It makes no business sense whatsoever. The show is still doing very well. [4:27] It's the highest rated news program on television. And it has been that way for more than 50 years. [4:34] The audience was up about 9% last year. And why would you mess with that? It's got an audience of [4:41] about 10 million people, between 9 and 10 million people, which is still one of the largest audiences [4:47] on network television. I want to ask you about something else here, because in a statement, [4:51] Scott Pelley said that the new management instructed him to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically [4:57] sensitive story, which he says he did not do. Cecilia Vega, in a separate statement, also spoke of pressure [5:03] to insert political bias and said that some staffers became reluctant to pitch certain stories out of fear [5:10] of internal repercussions. How significant a break is what they describe from the editorial culture [5:17] and standards that defined 60 minutes during your tenure? It's never happened. That's the only way [5:23] to describe it. I've never had anybody asked to make any kind of insertion or addition to a story [5:32] to change the tone of it or to change the facts of it. I don't think it's ever happened in 60 minutes. [5:39] We should say we reached out to CBS News for a statement. They have yet to respond. Zooming out, [5:45] what does the country lose if an institution like 60 Minutes becomes weaker, less independent, [5:52] or less ambitious? You've already seen the effects of it. Cecilia Vega, in her final statement to the [6:01] staff, outlined a number of problems that have occurred on the show and that people have been [6:07] unwilling or afraid to do story, intimidated from doing stories that needed covering, and that it [6:17] instilled this feeling of fear into the broadcast. And I think that's absolutely 100% true. So it's [6:26] already having effects. And I think that Scott was doing this, not just for himself, making the point [6:33] about himself personally. I think he was doing the standout for Sharon Alfonsi, who was fired, and for [6:40] Cecilia Vega, who was fired, and for Tanya Simon, who was fired, and Dragan Mihaljevic, who was fired. [6:48] All of these people are incredibly good journalists. And the kind of people you would need if you wanted [6:54] to continue to put a program like CBS 60 Minutes on the air, and now they are gone. I think it was [7:03] a slap in the face to everybody who has worked there over a long period of time. [7:09] Former 60 Minutes correspondent, Steve Croft. Steve, thanks again for your time. We appreciate it. [7:14] My pleasure. [7:26] Support journalism you trust. Support PBS News. Donate now, or even better, start a monthly contribution today.