The long run of “60 Minutes” could well hinge on two individuals with deep ties to CBS News’ past.
Many staffers and producers on the beleaguered newsmagazine are left wondering whether Lesley Stahl and Bill Whitaker, two CBS News veterans who’ve been with the news division now controlled by Paramount Skydance since 1971 and 1984, respectively, will stick with the show within the wake of a series of stunning ousters of its top ranks over the past week. Their decisions could play an enormous role in whether this system shall be entirely hallowed out or have some ties to the weather which have brought viewers in for years.
The choice is an emotional one, says one person aware of the business of CBS News: “I feel they feel like in the event that they leave, there’s nothing left of ’60.’”
There may be actually less. On Tuesday night, Scott Pelley, considered one of this system’s most recognizable correspondents, was ousted by Nick Bilton, installed last week because the show’s recent executive editor by Bari Weiss, the CBS News Editor in Chief who’s intent on overhauling the series. Bilton was outraged that Pelley questioned his credentials at a Monday meeting of the show’s staff, and indignant that the correspondent wouldn’t take his calls or meet him upfront of that event. Bilton and Weiss felt Pelley had created an unsustainable working environment.
“Your antipathy to the longer term of the show has come through loud and clear,” Bilton said in a letter sent to Pelley Tuesday evening and reviewed by Variety. “And I even have heard you. I subsequently write on behalf of CBS News to tell you that your employment with CBS is terminated effective immediately.”
“Despite our attempts to have interaction with Scott Pelley and to search out a way back, unfortunately we weren’t in a position to accomplish that, and so we needed to part ways,” Weiss said during a CBS News editorial meeting on Wednesday. We didn’t want that to occur, but that’s the trail that he selected.”
CBS News executives and Bilton had reached out to all of the remaining correspondents last week, based on an individual aware of the matter, and engaged with many. Pelley was not considered one of them. CBS News declined to make executives available for comment Wednesday morning.
In an announcement issued Tuesday night, Pelley said he felt recent management at CBS News and its parent company had weakened the newsmagazine “apparently to curry favor with the Trump administration, adding that he felt “incompetence and unprofessionalism in the brand new management have wreaked havoc” with the workings of the show.
Pelley’s exit will only increase give attention to the correspondents left behind, say two people aware of this system. Stahl, who joined “60 Minutes” in 1991, has made the show an integral a part of her life, based on these people, who imagine the selection to depart could be a difficult one for her. When Stahl began working on this system, legends like Mike Wallace and Morely Safer were still actively involved. She is on a year-to-year contract with this system, based on an individual aware of the matter.
Whitaker had within the recent past expressed a desire to stick with the show as well. Despite his a few years at CBS News, working largely on the west coast, he stays type of the “recent guy” at “60,” having joined in 2014. Not too way back, he was regarded as a candidate to switch Jane Pauley at “CBS Sunday Morning,” based on two people aware of the matter, after executives became concerned they’d not have the option to come back to terms on a brand new contract.
Stahl and Whitaker didn’t respond immediately to queries in search of comment Wednesday, and Jon Wertheim, a “60 Minutes” correspondent who joined the show in 2017, couldn’t be reached for comment earlier this week about his thoughts on recent changes at this system. Some staffers have interpreted their recent silence as an indication they could remain.
Each Stahl and Whitaker are journalism elders. Whitaker is 74 years old and Stahl is a decade older. But each evidence a younger spirit in interviews, with Whitaker taking up multiple assignments that may range from features to investigative pieces. Considered one of Stahl’s producers, meanwhile, once dubbed her “Grandma Badass” after a trek she made in 2021 to search out mountain primates in Rwanda.
“That is the reality: I’m not bored,” Stahl told Variety in 2021.
Lots of the staffers at “60 Minutes” have worked on this system for years, even a long time, and may additionally be reluctant to depart, says considered one of the people aware of the workings of the series. These producers may additionally feel pressed to remain because they’d be owed substantial severance or exit packages, slightly than walking off once they might get less compensation.
There are also only a few news vehicles that may give producers the identical type of role. “60 Minutes” doesn’t chase breaking news; it breaks its own, or it offers a tackle the news cycle that nobody else has. Or its operatives spend weeks getting a segment ready for air, and get to do more immersive reporting and exhaustive research that other news outlets would simply not allow, particularly in an era dominated by streaming and social media.
Even so, Stahl and Whitaker may never have more leverage than they do at this exact moment.