What happened
Former “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley on Sunday said he hadn’t expected to be fired after criticizing CBS News editorial chief Bari Weiss at a staff meeting last week. But “somebody had to stand up,” he told The New York Times in an interview. She was putting a “thumb on the scale for the president’s version of events that I felt was a level of political influence that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News.”
Who said what
After Pelley had gotten final sign-off on a report on ICE’s killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Weiss “sends an email to my boss” asking for some post-deadline changes, including, “Can we make the protesters look more violent?” and “Good’s car — you need to describe her as driving toward the officer,” Pelley said. That is “not what you see on the video,” he said, but it’s “what the president said.” A CBS News spokesperson said Weiss’ suggestions “had no political motivation” and sought to make the piece “strong, fair and accurate.”
What next?
Weiss is a “lovely person,” but “television’s not her thing” and she needs to be removed, Pelley said. “It’s possible to land this plane. But right now, CBS News is on fire.”