Amid growing scrutiny of 60 Minutes’ editorial integrity and uncertainty under CBS boss Bari Weiss, Paramount CEO David Ellison has reached out to Lesley Stahl with a few promises. The update comes following the abrupt removal of multiple senior correspondents, including Scott Pelley.
What David Ellison reportedly told Lesley Stahl about the future of 60 Minutes
According to The Hollywood Reporter, David Ellison reached out to Stahl, assuring the “editorial independence” of the news magazine. The 60 Minutes’ longest-serving correspondent later relayed the message to the staffers at the program’s New York office on June 8 during a champagne toast organized “to shore up morale at the program.”
Stahl said, “My toast was, ‘to us,’ meaning the survivors.” Fellow correspondent Jon Wertheim also offered a few words, pointing to Nick Bilton, the new executive producer who fired Pelley. Wertheim said he had been dealt “a hell of a hand” and noted that there were “bridges to build and fences to mend and assorted other structural metaphors.” Still, he expressed confidence and told Bilton. “But there’s a path here.”
On June 5, Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and Jon Wertheim confirmed that they are staying back at CBS’s 60 Minutes. In a memo to their colleagues at the program, they wrote, “We want to stay and fight.”
They wrote, as reported by The Hill, “Newsrooms are not supposed to be run like dictatorships. Collaboration and argument are the way we have always worked at 60.” Adding, “We have been grieving because this whole mess has wounded and damaged the broadcast,” the three reporters wrote to their co-workers on Friday. “We want to stay and fight, try to repair and preserve our reputation by continuing the Mike Wallace tradition of holding their feet to the fire as well as Morley’s brand of quirky, off-kilter reports like his on why people in Finland like to tango!”
CBS News editor-in-chief Weiss also fired Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. Vega, who was fired on May 28, wrote on Instagram that she and producers had “experienced efforts to insert political bias” into stories. The Writers Guild of America East Head criticized Paramount-owned CBS News for what he called “cruel and needless layoffs,” reports Variety.
TELL US- WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON THIS?
