"We should be profoundly skeptical when one party claims certainty and blames the other for our problems. That's a con. You know life isn't like that. That's why we invented democracies in the first place."
~ Scott Pelley
Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search For Meaning In The Stories Of Our Times
Scott Pelley's Full Statement
"60" has been the number one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.
The waste is heartbreaking.
Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause/. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.
For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I've been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.
At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to "keep up the good fight." Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership o ^0 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.
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."
~Scott Pelley
June 3rd, 2026
Scott Pelley's firing last Tuesday was Earth shaking. The Trump and his administration and donors are nothing short of a bunch of oligarchs and crooks. We are closer than ever to losing the American experience, all to make a few ultra rich, even richer, while we pay $6 a gallon for gas! This summer will be among the most challenging I will have experienced in my lifetime. Not just as I maneuver through my own health challenges, but also the stress of watching Trump destroy the country I was lucky to live in my whole life. This is the country my grandfather immigrated to, because he saw all the possibilities! He loved America, as did my father. My heart breaks daily. Dad would be beside himself to see what's happening. I miss my father, I think if him daily, but I would never want him to know about what we are all facing right now.
This story will more than likely shake out over the summer. I know we haven't heard the last of Scott Pelley. He truly earned my respect the other day, when he did his job and spoke truth to power! I felt good and found my own self respect the other day too. I haven't watched CBS in ages, their programming has gotten too repetitive! How many CSI shows does one network need? So, after Steven Colbert was kicked to the curb, never watching that network was no loss, but let me tell you, cancelling our Paramount+ subscription made me feel really good! All this pain at that network, and beyond, is for a merger that will bring us closer to having to endure state media, rather than a free press! I am not going to pay to support these people. They can kiss my ass. And as for Donald Trump, he hasn't permeated every area of my life yet, so with any luck he will be impeached, and with a little luck, we won't have him to kick around any more!
