Scott Pelley, the longtime veteran anchor of "60 Minutes" on CBS, said Wednesday that Bari Weiss's remarks to the staff of the show about his firing were "disingenuous."
"Bari Weiss knows what she said is not true," Pelley said in a Wednesday statement, according to The New York Times. "In the meeting on Tuesday, in which I was effectively fired, there was no effort of any kind to 'find a way back,' as Weiss said in the editorial meeting. At no point did anyone in the Tuesday meeting suggest that there could be steps taken by either side that would lead to a resolution."
He continued, saying Weiss, the editor-in-chief of CBS News, and Tom Cibrowski, the president of CBS News, were "openly hostile" during a meeting with him Tuesday.
"No CBS executive, at any time, suggested 'a way back.' To say so now is disingenuous. And they know it," Pelley said.
Pelley's statement comes after Weiss addressed Pelley's firing on Wednesday's network morning call, telling staff that she's "only" interested in working in a place that has "mutual respect."
"We cannot do our work without it," she said, according to The Guardian. "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."
Pelley was fired Tuesday night after a contentious Monday staff meeting in which Pelley reportedly confronted new "60 Minutes" executive producer Nick Bilton about the recent firings of top producers and correspondents. When Bilton asked if he and Pelley could have a private conversation about the matter, Pelley declined. In a statement Tuesday night, Pelley said it's "heartbreaking" that David Ellison, the CEO of CBS's parent company Paramount, is trying to "curry a moment of favor" with the Trump administration.
"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," Pelley said, referring to correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. "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."
In Bilton's termination email, Bilton said Pelley "hijacked" his first meeting. While openly questioning Bilton's intentions, Pelley reportedly told him and the rest of the staff that Weiss, who wasn't at the meeting, was "murdering" "60 Minutes."
"Yesterday's performative display of hostility — enacted in front of the staff instead of in a civil, private conversation — demonstrated that you have no interest in contributing to the future success of the show, or approaching my new tenure with a mind open to collaboration and progress," Bilton wrote.
Read Pelley's entire Tuesday statement on his firing below:
There 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 58th season, "60 Minutes" grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS.
"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. 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. I've 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 'keep up the good fight.' 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 emotion — a 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 again — a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.
