In addition to the ethical dilemmas, the journalist maintained that the new leadership of CBS News has been riddled with “incompetence and unprofessionalism.”
Despite Pelley’s assertion that the people working for 60 Minutes have “fought harder than anyone knows” to upkeep the program’s pillars, he admitted that the leadership is “no longer recognizable.”
Nevertheless, the longtime news anchor, who had accused Weiss of “murdering” 60 Minutes in the internal meeting, emphasized his pride for working for a program he considered an “American icon.”
“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,” he concluded. “I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.”
For Bilton’s part, he addressed Pelley’s firing in a memo to 60 Minutes staff June 3.
“I know how much Scott meant to many of you, and I don’t say this lightly,” Bilton wrote in a letter published by CBS News. “I made repeated attempts to have direct conversations with him over the weekend, and this afternoon I tried to find common ground. That was not the path Scott chose.”
