Scott Pelley speaks out after CBS firing, makes '60 Minutes' bias claims

Longtime "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley is speaking out and saying farewell after he was suddenly fired from the flagship program.

Pelley shared a lengthy and eye-opening statement on an Instagram account early on June 3, which was reshared by the verified pages of his former CBS colleagues. In the statement, shared across multiple images, he called the changes at the news program and at CBS "heartbreaking."

"There has never been anything in America like '60 Minutes,'" Pelley began. "The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history."

The journalist lauded the news institution's successes over the nearly 60 years of its existence. Pelley, who has been with the network for 37 years and on "60 Minutes" for over 20, said that when he and other colleagues began to take stewardship over from the Mike Wallace era, "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."

The anchor's exit comes after a heated staff meeting, as reported by The New York Times and Status on June 1, in which he accused network Editor in Chief Bari Weiss of "murdering" the news program and laid into its newly hired executive producer, former tech journalist Nick Bilton.

Weiss, who took up the role in 2025, has long been criticized for recent changes being made at CBS, while parent company Paramount has been accused, as Pelley put it, of attempting to "curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration." He added, "The waste is heartbreaking."

Pelley reflected on recent mass firings at the network – dubbed "Black Thursday" by the industry – reportedly including longtime "60 Minutes" senior leaders such as executive producer Tanya Simon, executive editor Draggan Mihailovich, and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. In public statements, Alfonsi and Vega said their firings were politically motivated.

He said they were "good people" who were "silenced" and "cruelly fired without cause." He continued, "They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos."

Scott Pelley says eye-opening ethics concerns happening at '60 Minutes'

Pelley made eye-opening allegations about recent happenings at the network, including that "new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story." He added, "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."

He also said that as of late, "politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast." He emphasized, "Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how honest journalism is done."

In one instance in which Pelley says new leadership "wreaked havoc" with "incompetence and unprofessionalism," he alleged the news program came within 19 minutes of not airing "at all."

USA TODAY has reached out to CBS for comment.

"At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon," he wrote, before lamenting the "collapse of values at the top."

Concluding, Pelley thanked his colleagues, saying his heart was "brimming with gratitude" for their impact. "I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again – a day when sanity, competence, and courage return."

CBS News terminated the correspondent, 68, after more than two decades at "60 Minutes," USA TODAY has learned, leaving Pelley without severance or other benefits effective immediately.

In a termination note obtained by USA TODAY, newly hired "60 Minutes" executive Bilton told Pelley that he was hoping they could pave a "path forward together" following the "misconduct," but said, "You made it clear that you are not interested in such a path."

Contributing: Anthony Robledo