Politics
More than 100 CBS veterans warned of a “wholesale dismissal of editorial management” under the network’s new leadership.
CBS legends have delivered a scathing rebuke of the network’s leadership after editor-in-chief Bari Weiss purged 60 Minutes staff amid her continuing MAGA makeover.
More than 100 CBS veterans and other signatories sent an open letter on Monday to Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, the Trump-friendly billionaire who took over CBS last year, blasting “the wholesale dismissal of editorial management” at 60 Minutes.
Among the signatories were legendary former CBS Evening News anchor and 60 Minutes correspondent Dan Rather, Pulitzer Prize-winning 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman, Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney, and eight-time Oscar nominee, along with dozens of former CBS staffers, according to a copy of the letter posted by The New York Times’ Ben Mullin.
CBS did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
“We, the undersigned, urge you and your management team at CBS News to uphold the principle of editorial independence that has made 60 Minutes—in the words of the show’s new executive producer—‘the most important television journalism brand this country has ever produced,’” they wrote, quoting from the lengthy memo new 60 Minutes executive producer Nick Bilton, 49, sent to staff last week after being hired by Weiss, 42.
“Institutional trust is not transferred through ownership,” they reminded Ellison, whose control of the network has been marked by staff revolts and slipping viewership since he installed Weiss, an anti-woke opinion columnist with no TV experience.
“Modernizing the show for new audiences and new delivery approaches is important—but not at the cost of editorial integrity,” the letter stated, in what appeared to be a reference to Bilton’s declaration that he was brought in to revamp 60 Minutes for a changing media landscape.
“The wholesale dismissal of editorial management, without a public pledge to maintain the values, standards, and traditions of this program, puts the legacy of 60 Minutes in jeopardy,” the signatories declared.
They urged Ellison, 43, to “send a clear message” that “you respect and value editorial independence and press freedom,” arguing that the “future of free and independent press in America” is at stake.
The letter was released on the same day 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley confronted Bilton, who has no TV experience, during a reportedly explosive staff meeting, saying Weiss—who was not even in attendance—is “murdering” the storied news program.
“She was brought in to kill it, and she’s been doing exactly that,” Pelley, 68, told Bilton, 49, according to reports.
Just 15 minutes into the meeting, during which Pelley told Bilton that he had “slender qualifications for this job” and that he “will never be welcome here,” the new boss left the room.
The clash came after a bloodbath at 60 Minutes last week, when Weiss fired correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, along with executive producer Tanya Simon, who spent nearly 30 years with the show, in what Pelley dubbed “Black Thursday.”
Emmy-winning journalist Steve Kroft, 80, already slammed Weiss’s purge on Thursday, saying that President Donald Trump’s “fingerprints and DNA are all over this.”
“Since I retired, I often wondered what would happen to 60 Minutes, but I never expected it would be executed by the president of the United States,” Kroft, who was a correspondent for the show from the late 1980s until 2019, told Status.
Rather, 94, has also been fiercely critical of his former network, telling Variety last July that he was “disappointed” but “not surprised” after Paramount paid $16 million to settle Trump’s lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. The settlement came as Ellison was negotiating an $8 billion acquisition of Paramount, which needed approval from the Trump-controlled Federal Communications Commission.
“Big billionaire business people make decisions about money,” Rather said at the time. “We could always hope that they will make an exception when it comes to freedom of the press, but it wasn’t to be.”
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