'The goal is to DESTROY the brand': 60 Minutes staffers enraged by Bari Weiss' incompetent takeover

[0:00] What's been said by the president and by his staff and by the chairman of the FCC, [0:07] that they don't like the way CBS has been operated. [0:10] They don't like the fact that it's on the air. [0:13] They would like to see it taken off the air. [0:15] They've said that a number of times. [0:16] They like to see people fired. [0:18] And that's what's happened. [0:20] I think that this is journalistic interference. [0:22] It makes no business sense whatsoever. [0:24] The show is still doing very well. [0:26] It's the highest rated news program on television. [0:29] And it has been that way for more than 50 years. [0:35] That was retired 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Croft issuing a stark warning publicly [0:40] about the destruction of independent journalism by Donald Trump's allies over at CBS. [0:46] That warning comes after the firing of veteran correspondent Scott Pelley this week [0:51] and a number of other correspondents and key senior staff members. [0:54] Today, there's brand new reporting that the fallout also extends [0:58] to the only three correspondents now left at 60 Minutes. [1:02] On that, Status reports this today. [1:04] Quote, according to people familiar with the matter, [1:07] Bill Whitaker, Leslie Stahl, and John Wertheim were met Wednesday [1:11] to discuss their futures at the Venerable News magazine. [1:15] Deadline is also reporting on this story about anxious CBS News staffers [1:19] wondering what and who could be next. [1:21] From that report, quote, [1:23] I have been in this business a long time and I have never seen anything this bad. [1:28] A CBS News insider told Deadline, quote, [1:31] how are we going to even be able to put on a show next season? [1:34] A longtime staffer said today of 60 Minutes, quote, [1:38] we are running out of time and people here and we need both. [1:41] I want to bring in the executive editor of Deadline.com, [1:44] Dominic Patton, who's bylined on that reporting. [1:46] Also joining us, Scott McFarlane. [1:48] He is the chief Washington correspondent and host for Midas Touch. [1:52] But before that, he was a justice correspondent for CBS News. [1:57] Let me start with you, Scott. [2:00] Does anything that's been alleged by Scott Pelley or Sharon Alfonsi or Cecilia Vega [2:07] ring true in terms of your experience as a correspondent for CBS News? [2:12] Nobody ever put a heavy hand on any of my reporting. [2:15] And, Nicole, in my final days at CBS in March, I was saying on the CBS Evening News, [2:21] Trump's lying about the 2020 election and Trump is lying about January 6th. [2:25] And they invited me back the next day and the next day and the next day. [2:28] But let me tell you something about Dominic's reporting. [2:31] I'm not sure how many sources he has on that, but let me add a whole bunch more. [2:35] That's exactly what's going on inside CBS News. [2:38] There is a concern about getting through the day and through the week and through the month [2:42] because, yes, they're losing a lot of people, but, yes, they're also risking their brand through [2:48] these changes. [2:49] The way a brand succeeds is through consistency over the years. [2:54] Consistency, familiar faces, familiar product through the years. [2:58] They're making wholesale changes to the cash cow inside CBS News. [3:03] It might work. [3:05] The changes could improve things. [3:07] But we've seen this with Coke in the 1980s. [3:10] We've seen this with other things in media where they make a change to the cast and people [3:15] don't come back to watch or buy again. [3:17] This is some high stakes, high wire stuff. [3:21] How could they make it better? [3:24] One of the things you could do is try to introduce it on other platforms if you want [3:28] to be more digital and not just on broadcast. [3:31] You want to have a more 360-degree presence seven days a week, more kinetic. [3:36] That's an ambitious goal and it's a worthy goal. [3:38] But how do you succeed, Nicole, if you don't have your tentpole talent? [3:43] The things that made the brand attractive in the first place. [3:47] Can you be attractive in the digital space on Mondays through Saturdays, Nicole, if you don't [3:51] have Scott Pelley and Cecilia Vega and Sharon Alfonsi? [3:54] It all gets harder. [3:57] Dominic, take us through what you're reporting. [4:00] Well, for one thing, I'd like to thank you, Scott, for the compliment. [4:02] Much appreciated. [4:04] And your work is always much appreciated. [4:06] Look, it's chaos theory in action over there. [4:08] I mean, that's what it is. [4:09] It's people who are, there's another quote from our piece from an insider who said, [4:13] it's closed door toxic environment over there. [4:16] I mean, nobody's really talking out in public. [4:18] We talked about, you know, status, talked about the meaning of the three remaining senior [4:22] correspondents. [4:23] They're trying to figure out their future. [4:25] We've heard they're all taking a breath and kind of figuring out where things are going [4:28] to land. [4:29] But, you know, there's a lot of breaths to be taken. [4:31] Let's put it very, very bluntly there. [4:34] I think also, too, when Scott's talking about brand, I really think that's interesting [4:37] because I think that the goal here is to destroy the brand because that's what's happened. [4:41] It's already happened now because you have not only 60 minutes basically gutted, [4:46] like a dead tree from the inside, but you also have this tremendous anxiety over at CBS News, [4:51] which before the 60 Minutes purge was the big problem over there for Barry Weiss and her team [4:56] because they had completely changed that around and were watching a ratings cratering happening. [5:01] Whether or not it's an issue of trust, whether or not it is, as you know, people talk about, [5:05] was there political interference? [5:06] Was there not? [5:07] Was there kind of a leaning towards things? [5:08] Was there not? [5:09] The result simply is it is a husk of what it used to be, and maybe change is good. [5:16] People talked about that when they spoke to Ted Johnson and I for our piece of yesterday. [5:20] But the reality is if you're going to make change, why are you breaking something that's [5:25] not broken? [5:26] You talked about it. [5:27] CBS is extremely successful on linear television, one of the few things that still are. [5:31] It also has been very successful in its digital platform endeavors as well. [5:36] So it's not like it left that out and they're trying to fill in the gap there. [5:39] If you're leaning towards the future, linear televisions doesn't look that great, [5:43] 60 Minutes at least has well, well stepped into the future and was bounding along until Barry Weiss came along. [5:51] Yeah, I mean, let me cut through the pretense, I guess, that maybe there was room to improve. [5:59] Like, that's a fine, respectfully, analysis of the morning show and the evening news, [6:03] which are perpetually in last place. [6:06] But 60 Minutes is the white whale that every other news organization in the world has been [6:14] looking for forever. [6:15] And what Scott Pelley alleges is that they, quote, made him insert things that weren't true. [6:21] This isn't about wanting to do self-improvement and Pelley wasn't on board for doing more like [6:26] face-to-camera clips for IG. [6:28] This is not that. [6:30] This is an allegation from the one-time anchor of the Evening News, now the tentpole, to use [6:36] your word, of 60 Minutes, who said they forced him to put things into stories. [6:41] You also, I mean, we gloss over Sharon Alfonsi, which if she was the only one that left, that [6:46] would have been a scandal in its own right. [6:48] Her Seacott reporting was held ostensibly for more calls to be made to the Trump White House. [6:56] And it's not even clear to me why Cecilia Vega was fired. [6:59] I mean, what, Dominique, happens as a consequence for gutting a news program for telling the [7:05] truth? [7:06] Well, at this point, Nicole, I would say nothing. [7:09] I mean, the fact of the matter is, is Barry Weiss was put in place by David Ellison soon [7:13] after his company, Skydance, bought Paramount. [7:16] Now they're on the verge of buying Warner Brothers Discovery. [7:18] And we all know very clearly, as Steve Croft talked about in the clip before we came on, [7:23] look, the Trump White House are no fans of CBS. [7:26] To be honest, conservatives have not been fans of CBS for decades, going back to Richard Nixon, [7:31] to the Reagan era, and et cetera, et cetera. [7:32] But this has become much more intense. [7:34] There has been, of course, a payout that occurred over what was basically a weak, lame lawsuit [7:39] about supposed editing at CBS at 60 Minutes over a Kamala Harris interview just before the election [7:45] in 2024. [7:46] There has been a distinct attempt to pander to the White House. [7:50] Now, you can say whether or not that's transactional corporate America in action. [7:54] Fair enough. [7:55] You want to say that. [7:55] But this is going a little bit further because this is transactional for $111 billion deal taking [8:00] over Warner Brothers Discovery. [8:02] Clearly, that is their end goal. [8:04] And in the process of doing that, you're simply leaving, you're destroying yourself. [8:09] And this is something that they are going to have to have consequences for. [8:14] Are those consequences going to come from people pounding tables and stamping their feet? [8:17] Well, I don't think the Ellison's really care about that, to be honest. [8:20] I think they have, as somebody once said, a high threshold for pain. [8:23] And that threshold is obviously very high at this point. [8:26] But I do think you're going to see repercussions happening down the line because America is in a [8:31] politically fluid time, if the recent primaries have shown us anything. [8:35] And certainly, we are going to see a change. [8:37] And certainly, we've already seen some Republicans are starting to break ranks with the MAGA loyalists. [8:42] So there might be the Reckoning, which is always the third sequel in any franchise, might be coming soon. [8:49] Yeah. [8:50] If I were writing fiction, the Reckoning would include all of the conservatives who used to care about the First Amendment joining with the pro-democracy side. [8:57] But there's a reason I don't write fiction. [8:59] I don't know. [8:59] But there's a reason I don't write fiction.