“60 Minutes” is done shedding correspondents — at least for now.
Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and Jon Wertheim announced on Friday that they’re staying at the storied news program after a tumultuous few weeks. Four “60 Minutes” correspondents have left or been fired as Bari Weiss, the top editor at CBS News, remakes the organization.
“Here’s why we’re are staying: We don’t want to see 60 Minutes die,” Stahl, Whitaker, and Wertheim said in a memo, which was viewed by Business Insider.
The veteran correspondents’ decision to stay comes three days after fellow veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley was fired following a dispute with new executive producer Nick Bilton, in which he confronted his new boss and Weiss.
Stahl, Whitaker, and Wertheim said they “had a hard time deciding whether to stay” at CBS News’ flagship program after Pelley’s firing. They said they were disappointed that “principled, fair and honest journalists were treated so shabbily, with such indecency.”
“Newsrooms are not supposed to be run like dictatorships,” Stahl, Whitaker, and Wertheim wrote.
Pelley’s outburst came after CBS News parted ways with a pair of “60 Minutes” correspondents in late May, declining to renew Sharyn Alfonsi’s contract and firing Cecilia Vega.
“Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear,” Bilton wrote to Pelley in a memo, which was viewed by Business Insider.
Weiss told CBS News staffers on an editorial call the next day that she’s “only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect,” adding that “we cannot do our work without it.”
Bilton told CBS staffers on Thursday afternoon that it “has been a trying and difficult few days” and said he’s committed to “journalistic independence” at “60 Minutes.”
“We will never be instructed by the ownership of the company on those stories,” Bilton wrote in his memo to employees.
Stahl, Whitaker, and Wertheim said they “heard all the right things” in Bilton’s memo but said they “need to see these commitments to our process and procedures put into action.”
“If we can continue doing the work that made this show what it is — committing acts of independent, fearless journalism and storytelling — we’re here for it. If not, we leave,” Stahl, Whitaker, and Wertheim wrote.
CBS News has plenty of skeptics under Weiss
Weiss was hired by David Ellison, the CEO of the CBS-parent company Paramount Skydance, to remake the network for the streaming era. She has since made a digital push and cut dozens of staffers.
Her critics have also said she’s making the network more politically palatable to President Donald Trump, though she has broadly denied this.
Alfonsi said in an exit memo that the decision to let her go “was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting,” referencing her dispute with Weiss in December over her reporting about the Trump administration’s deportation tactics. Weiss sidelined Alfonsi’s segment, saying she wanted more commentary from a Trump official, but it eventually ran without major changes.
Alfonsi added that her dismissal “sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom.”
Vega said in her exit memo that her termination was because of “censorship, both imposed and self-driven.” She said that she and her peers had “experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories” from CBS News leadership, which the network denies.
Longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent Anderson Cooper also recently decided to leave the news program, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family. He’s staying in his role at CNN.
Read the full memo from Stahl, Whitaker, and Wertheim here.
Read the original article on Business Insider
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