By now Iâm sure you know, CBS fired Scott Pelley yesterday. On his way out the door, Pelley published his own treatise about the situation, which Iâve copied and pasted below the dotted line. That fourth paragraph is a stunning revelation:
âFor my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. Iâve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.â
A few weeks ago, 60 Minutes interviewed Bibi Netanyahu. To call it an interview is a misnomer, as it came across as more of a P.R. stunt. And who was the interviewer? Major Garrett.
Who? Is he even a 60 Minutes correspondent? Nope.
Has Major Garrett EVER been given an opportunity to do a 60 Minutes segment? Iâve never seen him do one, and until just recently, I rarely missed the show. No offense to Mr. Garrett, but heâs no Mike Wallace. Heâs no Lesley Stahl or Scott Pelley either, which explains why Bibi chose him for that âhard-hittingâ exposĂ©. He made his bones at Fox News after all, so this sort of âjournalismâ is probably S.O.P. to him. Now we know why he got the nod; Bibi no doubt tapped him personally.
Pelley seems relieved to be out of there. He had to know they were going to fire him, and it just seems that heâs at peace with how it played out. He kept journalistic integrity first and foremost, even before his career. Thatâs what REAL journalists do. The cowardly propagandistic types go along to get along.
âThere has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.
The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58thseason, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS.
â60â 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. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.
The waste is heartbreaking.
Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. 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.
For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. Iâve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.
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 âkeep up the good fight.â 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.
I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotionâa heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored againâa day when sanity, competence, and courage return.â
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