Scott Pelley said in the months following Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of CBS News that he no longer recognizes “60 Minutes” and blamed the “incompetence and unprofessionalism” of the executives running the news department, which “wreaked havoc” for months.
In his first statement since CBS News announced its cancellation on Tuesday evening, Perry said Paramount Skydance is “setting aside this saga” because the weakening of the news magazine “clearly benefits the Trump administration.”
A CBS News spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CBS News fired the “60 Minutes” veteran after journalists and executives felt they couldn’t find a way to work together following a heated public spat Monday with former tech journalist Nick Bilton, whom Perry and executive editor Bari Weiss appointed last week. Bilton also dispatched the show’s most senior producers and correspondents Sharin Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. Perry is the fourth “60 Minutes” reporter to leave the venerable news magazine since February, leaving the trio of Leslie Stahl, Bill Whitaker and John Wertheim alone in charge as the show prepares for its 59th season in the fall.
“Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when all of our senior executives and two of our best on-air correspondents were brutally fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for their viewers. They defended fairness against the forces of political bias and professionalism against chaos,” Perry said.
“For my part, I was instructed by the new management to inject falsehoods and bias into politically sensitive stories. I was told to include unverified claims. So far, in each case I have been able to ignore or refuse these instructions. These days, politicians are asked to choose correspondents for broadcast interviews. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not the way to go.” “Finally, the incompetence and unprofessionalism of the new management wreaked havoc. An incident involving one of my articles ended within 19 minutes of the entire program going off the air at all.”
Mr. Perry has been one of the most public faces of CBS News for decades, serving as the anchor of “CBS Evening News” and contributing to “60 Minutes.” He signaled he expected the storied news division, which once served as Walter Cronkite’s home, to change direction. “After 37 years at CBS, I retire with one emotion: a deep sense of gratitude to the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for the day when those men and their ideals will be respected once again – sane, competent and courageous.”
