Scott Pelley did not hold back on his way out of CBS.
On Tuesday, June 3, the turmoil-laden network confirmed it had fired yet another of its longtime 60 Minutes anchors, after the veteran reporter questioned both new executive producer Nick Bilton's qualifications to run the country's top-rated news program, and the decision to fire some key members of its crew.
The former CBS Evening News anchor was swiftly fired, but he is doubling down with the sentiment he first shared upon the recent shake-up.
© Getty Images"There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes. The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history," he first shared, noting how this spring, at the end of its 58th season, the program "grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS," just as the network is struggling with its news ratings.
"'60' has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects," he continued.
"Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration," he added, referring to Donald Trump ally and Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, who was the one to appoint Bari Weiss, an opinion journalist with no prior broadcasting experience, as editor-in-chief of CBS News.
© Getty ImagesCalling the recent shift in CBS' approach to news "heartbreaking," he went on: "60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause," referring to former colleagues Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, as well as former executive producer Tanya Simon, who succeeded Bill Owens (who left having similar arguments) and who had been at the show for more than three decades.
"Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos," Scott further shared, alleging that the new management "instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story" and to "include assertions that are unverified" into his stories.
"Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc," he emphasized, revealing a recent case in which the program "came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all" because of an issue with one of his stories.
© WireImage"At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to 'keep up the good fight,'" Scott added, concluding: "Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well."
© Getty ImagesBari has since addressed Scott's departure, maintaining on CBS' morning call she is "only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect," and noting: "That foundation was broken on Monday, and despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren't able to do so, and so we had to part ways."
"We did not want that to happen, but that's the path that he chose. That unfortunate outcome does not discount from the amazing contributions and work that Scott Pelley has done for CBS and for 60 Minutes over the course of his career," she also said.
