Tensions have escalated at CBS in the wake of 60 Minutes reporter Scott Pelley’s firing.
“Morale is terrible throughout the company,” a source exclusively tells Us Weekly. “No one knows what to believe or who is working against them. It has never been like this before. The staff in the newsroom all feel like they cannot trust anyone. How can you work like that?”
News broke on Tuesday, June 2, that Pelley, 68, was fired from CBS and 60 Minutes after an alleged verbal altercation with the show’s new executive producer, Nick Bilton.
Bilton, 49, reportedly stormed out of a staff meeting after Pelley told him he has “slender” qualifications for his role, also questioning the network’s future plans for the program.
According to the New York Times, Pelley also privately accused Bari Weiss, the network’s editor-in-chief, of “murdering” 60 Minutes during the explosive meeting.
“You should hear this from me first. We have parted ways with Scott Pelley,” a memo sent to staffers and obtained by The Hollywood Reporter read on Tuesday. “I know how much Scott meant to many of you, and I don’t say this lightly. I made repeated attempts to have direct conversations with him over the weekend, and this afternoon I tried to find common ground. That was not the path Scott chose.”
In an email to Pelley obtained by NBC News, Bilton told the correspondent that he “hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt.”
Pelley broke his silence on his firing on Wednesday, June 3.
“There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes,” he said in a statement. “60 has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality and humanity in our stories.”
Pelley then accused CBS’ new owners of bowing to President Donald Trump. (Skydance Media, led by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Larry Ellison, bought CBS parent company Paramount in a merger last year.)
“The new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration,” Pelley alleged in his statement. “The waste is heartbreaking.”
Pelley wrote in conclusion, “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.”
According to Us’ insider, CBS staffers have felt uneasy ever since the merger between Skydance Media and Paramount Global.
“From the beginning, the general belief has been that the intent is to destroy the news [division] from the inside,” the source says. “Instead of cancelling or dismantling the programs, they want to humiliate them. That’s truly how the staff feels. And they 200 percent believe the same will happen at CNN.” (Paramount Skydance has been working towards merging with CNN’s parent company Warner Brothers Discovery in a landmark $110 billion deal.)
The insider adds that the alleged narrative that Pelley was “problematic and disliked” by others at the network is “BS.”
“These are not fragile people, they can deal with tough personalities,” the source says. “That is not the issue. They are demanding honest communication about the changes that are occurring, and that’s the least they deserve.”
The insider concludes, “This is happening throughout the company, but especially in the news division.”
Us reached out to CBS for comment.
