U.S. journalist Scott Pelley in Hollywood in 2024. CBS News fired the longtime '60 Minutes' correspondent on June 2, following clashes over the show's future, the latest shakeup under the network's new leadership.MICHAEL TRAN/AFP/Getty Images
Growing up, Sunday night was TV night in our home. And as a child of the sixties and seventies, the options were not overly abundant.
Bonanza was a staple, as was The Ed Sullivan Show. But one became my clear favourite: 60 Minutes.
Mike Wallace. Morley Safer. Dan Rather. Harry Reasoner. They were icons. Over the years, the names would change but the high standard of professionalism among 60 Minutes correspondents never wavered. They told wonderful stories, wonderfully well. They were fearless and indiscriminate: their subjects might be low-life scumbags trying to rip people off or powerful business people trying to do the same.
The show took us everywhere, from war zones to amusement parks. The reporters put their microphones in front of everyone from world leaders to porn stars. And one of the very best to do it was Scott Pelley.
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I speak of 60 Minutes almost in the past tense and yet it remains very much on the air. But it is under threat, caught in the maelstrom that is the chaos and corruption engulfing the United States. It began last year as Shari Redstone, majority shareholder of Paramount (which owned CBS), was trying to sell the company to a consortium, Skydance, led by David Ellison. One person who could get in the way of a deal was U.S. President Donald Trump, who sued CBS News and 60 Minutes over a bogus claim the program had edited video of Kamala Harris in a way that amounted to favouritism ahead of the 2024 election. Few lawyers felt the claim had any legitimacy. But on July 2, 2025, Paramount settled with Mr. Trump, in what many considered a straight-up bribe. It marked a low point for CBS.
Mr. Ellison installed Bari Weiss as the editor-in-chief of CBS News, a title that never existed before at the network. Ms. Weiss is a former opinion writer for the New York Times and was often an outspoken critic of the left and cancel culture. She had no prior experience running a television network.
Bari Weiss speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in May, 2022 in Beverly Hills, CaliforniaPATRICK T. FALLON/AFP/Getty Images
In recent weeks, she carried out wholesale firings at 60 Minutes, including its distinguished executive producer, Tanya Simon, and equally distinguished reporters like Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega.
This after the show had concluded a season which realized audience growth of a remarkable 9 per cent.
Then last week it fired Mr. Pelley, one of the biggest names in U.S. journalism. His crime? Daring to criticize Ms. Weiss and the person she’d appointed to succeed Ms. Simon as executive producer, Nick Bilton.
It all came to a head at a staff meeting, in which Mr. Pelley accused Ms. Weiss of “murdering 60 Minutes.” He also said Mr. Bilton was unqualified to hold the position to which he’d been appointed. The next day he was gone.
The hurt and anger that the tumult at 60 Minutes has caused was evident in a remarkable interview Mr. Pelley recently gave The New York Times. It’s impossible to watch and listen to his words and not be saddened and dismayed.
One man, Mr. Trump, has not only corrupted his office to an unimaginable scale, he has trained the country’s oligarchs to surrender to their worst impulses, to accommodate his wishes over principle.
And the tentacles of corruption spread farther each day. The peril it poses to America’s most cherished institutions cannot be overstated.
Mr. Pelley accused Ms. Weiss of attempting to inject “falsehoods and bias” into a story.
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In one he was reporting on about the ICE protests in Minneapolis that resulted in the killing of civilians Renée Nicole Macklin Good and Alex Pretti, Ms. Weiss asked if there was a way to make the protesters “look more violent.”
Mr. Pelley also recalled that Ms. Weiss demanded that the story be changed to indicate Ms. Good was “driving toward the officer,” who eventually shot and killed her.
Various angles of the shooting had ultimately contradicted claims made by Mr. Trump and others that Ms. Good, whom the President described as a “professional agitator,” tried to deliberately drive over the officer who shot her. Mr. Pelley refused to change his script. In his interview, he claimed Ms. Weiss “was putting a thumb on the scale on behalf of the [Trump] administration.”
Mr. Pelley’s deeply emotional connection to 60 Minutes and CBS News is evident throughout his interview. This is someone who put his life in danger countless times reporting from various war zones. He believes deeply in the importance of the fourth estate and understands the unparalleled attack it is under.
“There is no democracy without journalism,” Mr. Pelley said, his eyes filled with tears. “It can’t be done. That is why I am a journalist.”