Fired Scott Pelley accuses CBS of trying to ‘curry favour’ with Trump — ‘Good people were silenced...’

Scott Pelley, a longtime 60 Minutes correspondent who was fired by CBS News, has accused the network’s new executives of trying to “curry favour” with the Donald Trump administration.In a public statement, Pelley also claimed that they instructed him “to inject falsehoods and bias” into his reporting.In a lengthy social media statement, Pelley wrote: “‘60’ has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories.”“When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects,” he said. “Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.”Pelley also criticised the new leadership at CBS, saying that 60 Minutes “lost its DNA” last month “when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause.”“Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos,” he said.Pelley also said that new management instructed him “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,” he said.“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,” the fired correspondent said. “Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc.”Pelley claimed that for one of his stories, “the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.”He concluded his statement by saying that he was departing “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.”“I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honoured again – a day when sanity, competence, and courage return,” he said.Bari Weiss on Scott Pelley’s termination“…I’m only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect. We cannot do our work without it,” Bari Weiss said in a meeting, according to the Guardian."That foundation was broken on Monday, and despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways,” she said of Scott Pelley’s termination.Weiss said CBS does not want that to happen, “but that’s the path that he chose.”“That unfortunate outcome does not discount the amazing contributions and work that Scott Pelley has done for CBS and for 60 Minutes over the course of his career,” she added, while listing some of his stories from the past season and calling them “unforgettable stories”.Bari Weiss ‘murdering 60 Minutes’: Scott PelleyScott Pelley's 22-year run on the show came to an end after he was terminated on Tuesday after clashing with the new network leadership.Last week, CBS News leadership fired 60 Minutes’ executive producer, executive editor, and two top correspondents without cause or explanation. Tensions boiled over during a high-stakes meeting on Monday featuring newly minted executive editor Nick Bilton.During the confrontation, Pelley launched a direct verbal assault against Bari Weiss, the former opinion commentator tapped to lead the network as editor-in-chief last October. He was fired the next day.“She’s murdering 60 Minutes,” Pelley said, the Guardian reported. “She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that.”Pelley was informed of his termination the following day, in a message from Bilton, who reportedly call