Scott Pelley with members of his crew outside the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland prior to the start of the RNC in 2016.Mark Reinstein/Zuma
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“The principles I hold dear are gone,” 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley said after getting fired Tuesday night for criticizing Bari Weiss’ leadership at CBS News the day before as submitting to President Donald Trump’s whims. “And so I must leave.”
In his statement, he detailed how the program’s new management repeatedly instructed him to “inject falsehoods and bias” and “include assertions that are unverified.” Though Pelley refused to do so, he said network leadership allowed politicians to pick their own interviewers—“giving politicians control” and destroying the broadcast’s integrity.
You can read Pelley’s full statement below:
As I wrote last December, CBS has previously pulled 60 Minutes segments, including one that was critical of the Trump administration deporting people from Venezuela to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.
At the 47th News and Documentary Emmy Awards last Wednesday, Scott Pelley handed Santiago Campos, a high school senior, a $10,000 scholarship from CBS News for a submission that reflected on the Trump administration’s immigration crackdowns through the story of his own family. Campos condemned CBS News in his acceptance speech, stating that the network’s new editorial direction “stains the legacy of Mike Wallace, the namesake of this scholarship.”
CBS News’ downfall comes as David Ellison—son of Oracle co-founder and centi-billionaire Larry Ellison—took over Paramount, the company that owns the network.
“God, we need young people like you right behind us.” Pelley said to Campos after his acceptance speech. “I know that Mike Wallace is looking down at you with pride at this very moment.”
