FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr went after journalist Scott Pelley, who claimed in a recent New York Times profile that he had “no idea” he would be fired from “60 Minutes.”
“One of the reasons why trust in the media is so low is that many traditional journalists are simply out of touch,” Kerr wrote on X Sunday Morning. “You can’t escape that kind of behavior in any factory job. It’s become clear how blind some people are to it.”
By “that behavior” Carr refers to Perry’s recent and very public distaste for the new administration on CBS News and “60 Minutes.” On May 25, Perry reportedly slammed the show’s new executive producer, Nick Bilton, calling the former NYT technology columnist “poorly qualified” for the job. Bilton was scouted for “60 Minutes” by CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss, but during the same meeting Perry accused her of “killing” the show with her leadership.
On June 2, Bilton released a letter claiming that CBS News and Perry were unable to reconcile and that Perry was fired from 60 Minutes.
“Your antipathy toward the future of the program has been made very clear,” Bilton wrote. “I have heard your story. Therefore, I am writing on behalf of CBS News to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated effective immediately.”
Elsewhere in the NYT interview, Mr. Perry suggested that CBS News’ parent company, Paramount Skydance, should remove Mr. Weiss as editor-in-chief. Perry insisted that “television is not her thing” and that “60 Minutes” desperately needed an “adult director.”
“Some of the people in these jobs, through no fault of their own, have no experience in television. They don’t know what they’re doing,” Perry told the Times’ Lulu Garcia-Navarro. “And there’s a subtle political bias that I’ve never seen before on 60 Minutes or CBS News. So that’s my hope: that sanity is restored.”
