Scott Pelley, the veteran CBS News correspondent fired this week after publicly accusing network leadership of "murdering" 60 Minutes, issued a formal statement Tuesday night detailing what he says drove him out — and the allegations are specific.
"New management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story," Pelley wrote. "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."
Pelley said the demands didn't stop there. Politicians, he wrote, had been invited to select which correspondents would conduct their interviews — a practice he called incompatible with basic journalistic standards. And he revealed that mismanagement had nearly killed an episode outright: the broadcast came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.
The statement named a culprit. The new owner of CBS, Pelley wrote, was dismantling the most successful program in television history "apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration."
As Raw Story reported Tuesday, Pelley was fired after confronting CBS News leadership in a staff meeting and accusing them of murdering the program. In his termination letter, CBS Executive Producer Nick Bilton said Pelley was dismissed "for cause" — a designation Pelley can challenge in court.
His new statement made clear he views the firing as part of a broader collapse. Senior leadership and two correspondents had already been cut before he was shown the door, he said, and "good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience."
None of it came during a ratings slump. 60 Minutes posted a 9 percent jump in viewers at the end of its 58th season — growth Pelley called "unheard-of."
"The collapse of values at the top has become untenable," he wrote. "The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well."
He closed after 37 years at CBS with a prayer "for a day when sanity, competence, and courage return."
