Former \u201c60 Minutes\u201d correspondent Scott Pelley accused CBS News chief Bari Weiss of tilting coverage in favor of how President Donald Trump characterized events in Minnesota and described a newsroom in turmoil under her leadership during an emotional New York Times interview published Sunday.<\/p>\n
In his first interview since being fired last week, Pelley alleged Weiss attempted to influence a politically sensitive \u201c60 Minutes\u201d report on immigration protests in Minneapolis and said her intervention amounted to editorial interference he had never before experienced at CBS News.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a thumb on the scale for the president\u2019s version of events that I felt was a level of political influence that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News,\u201d Pelley told The New York Times.<\/p>\n
Pelley said the dispute centered on a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d segment about the confrontation between protesters and federal agents during immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota, including the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.<\/p>\n
According to Pelley\u2019s account, Weiss sent notes on the segment after it had already been approved for broadcast. He said one request was to portray protesters as more violent and another involved the description of the circumstances around Good\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo of the things in the email include, can we make the protesters look more violent? Now, I\u2019m paraphrasing. I don\u2019t have the quote, but that\u2019s what was communicated to me,\u201d Pelley said. \u201cAnd the other thing, Renee Good\u2019s car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pelley said he and his producer had already \u201cgone out of our way\u201d to include footage showing protesters behaving violently, including confrontations with law enforcement. He said they also reviewed video of the shooting involving Good and concluded it did not support the characterization Weiss wanted to include in the piece.<\/p>\n
According to Pelley, no changes were made based on Weiss\u2019 notes.<\/p>\n
CBS News rejected Pelley\u2019s account in a statement to The New York Times and NBC News, saying that Weiss made \u201cfour points in the course of editorial back-and-forth.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had no political motivation and were proposed solely to make the piece as strong, fair, and accurate as possible,\u201d the statement said. \u201cAs is frequently the case in any newsroom that operates with collaboration, not everything she raised made it into the final piece.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pelley\u2019s allegations were part of his broader criticism of CBS News leadership following the sale of Paramount, CBS\u2019 parent company, to Skydance Media and the appointment of Weiss as the network\u2019s editor-in-chief.<\/p>\n
Pelley was fired Tuesday after a heated meeting with newly hired \u201c60 Minutes\u201d executive producer Nick Bilton, whom he said lacked experience in television news.<\/p>\n
Pelley told the Times that tension had been mounting for weeks following mass firings and leadership changes at \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d including the dismissal of executive producer Tanya Simon.<\/p>\n
Pelley said he confronted Bilton during a staff meeting where the new boss had introduced himself to employees and read from prepared remarks. Prior to the meeting, Bilton sent an email to staff that Pelley described as \u201cinsulting\u201d and introduced plans for a new crop of \u201c60 Minutes\u201d correspondents.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd when I saw that, I thought, \u2018They\u2019re going to fire all of us, eventually,\u2019\u201d Pelley said. \u201cSo that\u2019s why I use these admittedly, for a journalist, hyperbolic terms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pelley described growing concerns at CBS News after Paramount agreed to settle Trump\u2019s lawsuit against the network in July 2025, a decision announced just weeks before federal regulators approved the company\u2019s acquisition by David Ellison\u2019s Skydance Media. Pelley called the settlement a \u201cbribe\u201d intended to help secure approval of the deal, an allegation that Paramount has denied.<\/p>\n
The former CBS News journalist alleged that Simon\u2019s firing may have been linked to tensions involving Anderson Cooper\u2019s departure from \u201c60 Minutes\u201d at the end of his contract. Cooper, whose contract was not renewed, ended his final appearance by saying he hoped \u201c60 Minutes\u201d would remain true to itself.<\/p>\n
Simon was \u201cblindsided\u201d by her termination, according to Pelley, who tearfully described her as having grown up with CBS News since her father, Bob Simon, worked at the network.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy understanding from people directly involved in that interaction is that Bari Weiss was quite livid that Anderson Cooper was allowed to say those things and that she, Bari, was not consulted beforehand, which in our normal course of business would not have been done anyway,\u201d Pelley said. \u201cI believe that was part of the reason Tanya was let go.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson from CBS News did not immediately respond to NBC News\u2019 request for comment on Pelley\u2019s description of Simon\u2019s termination and his assertion that Weiss should be removed from her position at CBS News.<\/p>\n
Pelley, who spent 37 years at CBS News as a White House correspondent, \u201cCBS Evening News\u201d anchor and \u201c60 Minutes\u201d correspondent, described the network\u2019s leadership as lacking experience. He believes the network can recover but warned trust inside the newsroom as eroded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t know what they\u2019re doing,\u201d Pelley said. \u201cAnd there\u2019s a subtle political bias that I\u2019ve never seen at \u201860 Minutes\u2019 before, or at CBS News before. So that is my hope: a return to sanity. We can save this. It\u2019s possible to land this plane. But right now, CBS News is on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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