Lesley Stahl is something of a unicorn in the world of TV journalism, in that she’s been with the same company for 55 years, and still has no immediate plans to hang her hat, even at 84. She’s obviously been privy to all kinds of newsworthy moments throughout her years within the CBS News family, but she says the string of recent firings has been unlike anything she’s experienced, and certainly not in a good way.
For those unaware, CBS News' somewhat polarizing editor-in-chief Bari Weiss recently made the call to fire executive producer Tanya Simon, correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, producer Draggan Mihailovich, and segment producers Guy Campanile and Matthew Polevoy, with Scott Pelley ultimately earning his own termination after going off on newly hired EP Nick Bilton for his lack of experience. Stahl was taken aback by all of it, and was set to take a flight to Madrid with Campanile when he got the call. (And was apparently told he could still go and produce a segment, which he did not do.)
Speaking with Puck, Stahl summed up recent weeks in such a way that it’s almost surprising she agreed to return for the next season alongside Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim. As she put it:
[It's been] the hardest chapter of my career, and it’s been a long career. It’s been over 50 years. This was by far the worst experience I’ve been involved in, or even witnessed. I mean, firing seven people, including the entire management team over here, plus reporters and producers…
Stahl's long career at CBS hasn't been without its specific ups and downs, including her infamous interview with Donald Trump during the build-up to the 2020 election that he complained about and then leaked online ahead of its airdate. She was there for Watergate, even. But apparently nothing has hit her in the same was as losing a batch of trusted colleagues in one fell swoop.
The correspondent said that while the staff was aware that clean-up was being done, with possible changes to be made, Tanya Simon in particular was blindsided, thinking she was taking a meeting with Weiss to talk about the upcoming season, only to get fired in a three-minute window, and then told that she and her deputy producer had to pack up and exit.
Perhaps the most bothersome thing about it all to Stahl is that no one still on the 60 Minutes staff was ever given a reason for why their colleagues were suddenly jettisoned. And she pointed out that her bosses viewed Scott Pelley as being "insubordinate" when he demanded answers about why so many were fired. (CBS reps shared with Puck that legal reasons prevent employees from disclosing reasons for termination with other employees.)
What Lesley Stahl Made A Point To Bring Up With EP Nick Bilton
Lesley Stahl had dinner with Nick Bilton on Wednesday, June 3, after returning from the Madrid trip that Guy Campanile was originally meant to work on. The way she puts it, it was an amicable enough meeting where she wanted to get the point across that for all the changes being made, 60 Minutes itself is not actually suffering. As she put it:
It was a meeting to talk about the procedures at 60 Minutes. I was making a plea not to change anything on the Sunday night broadcast. . . . We understand that we need to do more. We get that, and if there are good ideas on that front, fine. The Sunday night broadcast, after 60 years, and after increasing our audience this past season, in my view, shouldn’t be tampered with. It’s so not broke, so why, quote, fix it?
That's been the issue that's made me scratch my own head the most, though I obviously have no dogs in this fight. But at a time when broadcast TV audiences are seemingly dwindling more than ever, 60 Minutes is still among the most-watched non-sports programming every single week that episodes air. So to start making big changes behind the scenes is to possibly threaten that forward momentum.
Despite reports of morale being terrible now, Stahl says she and her colleagues are playing ball and have upped their efforts in terms of being more online, with a bigger push for podcasts and YouTube. But that regardless of whether those shots land or not, the TV flagship is still doing exactly what it always has, and doesn't need further adjustments. Will the powers that be listen? Only the future can reveal that.
With Bari Weiss likely in place for many years to come, 60 Minutes will likely feature at least one noteworthy change when the new season kicks off in the fall, but hopefully it isn't anything too drastic, like a digital clock swapped into the intro. Never that.
