As the 2026 TV schedule moves along, CBS News has been going through shakeups for months, and the latest firing has really made waves. Now, after Scott Pelley was let go from 60 Minutes, an insider has shared information about how things are reportedly going. According to them, “morale is terrible.”
Pelley was fired after he allegedly got into a heated conversation with Nick Bilton, 60 Minutes' new executive producer. Apparently, the correspondent criticized editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and the changes CBS News has faced since she took over. While a former producer defended Pelley, he was ultimately fired. Now, an insider has told Us Weekly how things are allegedly going at the network in the wake of all this:
Morale is terrible throughout the company. No one knows what to believe or who is working against them. It has never been like this before. The staff in the newsroom all feel like they cannot trust anyone. How can you work like that?
As the conflict between Pelley and Bilton unfolded, the EP wrote in a memo, via Us Weekly, that the correspondent “hijacked” his first meeting with the staff. He also called the journalist’s actions a “performative display of hostility.”
This new source called “BS” on the claims that Pelley was “problematic and disliked.” Further explaining that point, the source claimed:
These are not fragile people, they can deal with tough personalities. That is not the issue. They are demanding honest communication about the changes that are occurring, and that’s the least they deserve.
The take provided by this insider comes not long after Pelley released a statement about his firing. Via Deadline, he criticized CBS News’ new leadership, and he claimed that the new owner of the network is casting 60 Minutes “aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.”
He went on to call out the other 60 Minutes staffing changes that have happened, and made claims about what the new higher-ups have asked them to do:
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.
Overall, he concluded that at CBS “the principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.”
Ever since the Skydance and Paramount merger, tensions have seemed high at CBS News, as it's faced many changes. The daytime schedule saw a big shakeup last fall, as CBS Saturday Morning lost its co-anchors and executive producer. There have also been multiple rumors about Gayle King’s future at the company. Plus, outside of the news division, the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has also been a big point of conversation regarding the new leadership at CBS.
Overall, there’s been a lot of change and rumors going around, with this 60 Minutes news being a new and intense shakeup.
