CBS News has fired Scott Pelley, one of its most prominent correspondents, ending a nearly four-decade career at the network and intensifying a period of upheaval at the storied newsmagazine 60 Minutes.
The dismissal, announced Tuesday, followed a tense staff meeting a day earlier in which Pelley sharply criticized the program’s new leadership. In a termination letter, executive producer Nick Bilton accused Pelley of hijacking his first meeting with staff to disparage him, his qualifications and his intentions with what Bilton described as remarkable incivility and contempt.
According to accounts of the confrontation, Pelley told colleagues that the newsmagazine had lost its identity under new management and questioned the credentials of the executives now overseeing it. He reserved particular criticism for Bari Weiss, the network’s editor in chief, suggesting the outlet was being dismantled, and challenged the decisions to remove several of his colleagues.
In a statement after his firing, Pelley said the new leadership had pressed him to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story and to include assertions he considered unverified. He defended the colleagues who had recently departed, casting them as journalists who had stood for fairness against political pressure. CBS leadership disputed his characterization, with Weiss saying he had violated the trust and mutual respect expected within the organization.
Pelley joined CBS News in 1989 and built one of the most decorated careers in American broadcast journalism. He served as a White House correspondent in the late 1990s, anchored the CBS Evening News from 2011 to 2017, and spent more than two decades reporting for 60 Minutes. Over his tenure he won dozens of Emmy Awards, becoming one of the network’s most recognizable on-air figures.
His exit is the latest in a series of high-profile departures from the program. Other correspondents and producers, including Sharyn Alfonsi, Cecilia Vega and a former executive producer, have left in recent months amid the leadership transition. Some of those departures were linked to internal disputes over editorial decisions, including the handling of segments touching on the Trump administration.
The turmoil follows significant changes in ownership and management. Paramount, the parent company of CBS, merged with Skydance Media in 2025, bringing David Ellison to the helm of the broadcaster. Weiss, a founder of an independent commentary publication, was installed as editor in chief last fall, and Bilton, a journalist with a background outside traditional television news, was elevated to lead 60 Minutes only days before the confrontation with Pelley.
The shake-up has raised questions about the editorial direction of a program long regarded as a flagship of American investigative journalism. Critics inside and outside the network have warned that the rapid leadership changes risk eroding the show’s reputation, while management has framed the moves as necessary to modernize the operation.
Pelley’s firing has already drawn attention from across the industry, with figures at rival outlets publicly weighing in on his departure. For now, his exit leaves 60 Minutes with a depleted roster of veteran correspondents and an uncertain path forward as it heads into a new chapter under contested leadership.
