Leaderboard

Playing off the 1976 Bicentennial heritage branding, WETA is rolling out new IDs and on-air graphics packaging for a summer of American storytelling content around the 250th celebration. Custom music from composer Chris Majka that brings the '76 sound back to life. WETA America 250.mp4

Exactly, when I think of generational anchors at WABC, it's Bill Beutel and Roger Grimsby. Part of it is the original Eyewitness News format took off when they were brought in and assumed anchor duties. They changed the game for the station.. They are the Channel 7 (and NY broadcasting) icons.

I feel like Bill never reached that icon status of other news men like Bill Butel, Roger Grimsby, Jim Jensen, and Chuck Scarborough. I think part of it was because by the time Bill took the helm at WABC their anchors were treated an ensemble with no one team standing out above the rest. Another long time anchor I'd say that about is WNBC's David Ushery.

I suppose this is a question for the Ellisons--- but what financial sense does it make for Skydance to destroy its own entity? Steve Kroft speaking out on PBS Newshour.

It's painful to see arguably the best but most struggling network news organization in this country reduced to a heaping pile of of . What is the goal here? I know the rightward turn is to appease the Trump administration, but doesn't it affect their bottom line if their news department loses ratings??? Are are any conservatives actually turning CBS News----are they aware of the editorial change? It doesn't make sense to destroy your base viewership to chase an audience you probably won't get. It's one thing to mess with the long time failure CBS Evening News but it's another to play with their bread and butter---60 Minutes, and (not yet) Sunday Morning.

Another statement from Scott Pelley: I'm saddened to see the transcript of the CBS News morning editorial meeting. Bari Weiss knows what she said is not true. In the meeting on Tuesday, in which I was effectively fired, there was no effort of any kind to "find a way back," as Weiss said in the editorial meeting. At no point did anyone in the Tuesday meeting suggest that there could be steps taken by either side that would lead to a resolution. Weiss and Tom Cibrowski were openly hostile from the start. "Firing" was raised by Cibrowski in the first 15 seconds. No CBS executive, at any time, suggested "a way back." To say so now is disingenuous. And they know it. In fact, Weiss, Cibrowski and Nick Bilton refused to answer my questions. I asked Weiss a number of questions about why she fired the entire senior staff of 60 Minutes a few days before and without cause. "I'm not answering that question," she said. I asked why she did not come to 60 Minutes' offices to explain her actions. "I'm not answering that question." Why did she fire 60 Minutes Executive Producer Tanya Simon? "I'm not answering that question." Why fire correspondent Cecilia Vega? "I'm not answering that question." Why fire correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi? "I'm not answering that question." Throughout the meeting, the CBS executives were abrupt, dismissive and uninterested in dialogue. Suddenly, and to my surprise, Cibrowski declared, "This conversation is over!" "Why?" I asked. "I'm happy to answer your questions." "This conversation is over!" Cibrowski repeated, raising his voice and standing to show me the door. "I'm happy to keep talking," I added. No constructive dialogue was allowed by the CBS executives at any point. I was stonewalled for about 10 minutes and then, for no apparent reason, "This conversation is over." I am pained that the staff of CBS News was misled in the Wednesday morning conference call. These executives cannot gain the trust of the staff with lies. This is antithetical to everything we stand for and reveals contempt for what journalists do.

The “dungeon” theme was fun and perfectly fine for what it was, but this is a much more “independent business” suitable brand. To anyone in any field launching their own venture, I always say sincere best wishes. It’s great to see people building something of their own.

A major change last night prior to the season premiere of AGT, the network changes its curtain raiser again for the first time in 3 years.

Well a Wiseman once said it before but we will say it again, Goodnight and good luck mo*********rs

Scott Pelley’s statement in full: There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes. The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58th season, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS. “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. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration. The waste is heartbreaking. Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA 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. 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. At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well. 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. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return. Scott Pelley

Your turn, Lesley Stahl.... I can't ever recall such a disastrous and destructive tenure of a news organization than what Bari Weiss has done to CBS News. The only thing that seems to come close is when Joel Cheatwood took over WMAQ in Chicago....and Carol Marin and Ron Magers resigned in protest. In fact, this eventually led Carol Marin over to WBBM, and even did some work at 60 Minutes with her ties to CBS at the time.

And.....scene for CBS News! That is a wrap! CBS will still have viewers for NFL and other big events. Today's firing of Scott Pelley is the proverbial nail in the coffin. Walter Cronkite himself could come back from the dead and viewers wouldn't watch.

WOW! that b***h is murdering 60 minutes! I hope that those who can walk out! WALK OUT!

Kudos to Scott Pelley, a wonderful news reporter with impeccable integrity. Getting fired from the festering, anti-journalist and pro-fascism cesspool that CBS has become — and going down in such a blaze of glory — is a badge of honor. Onward and upward.

Lots of opportunities for someone to put together a program called "The Hour" on Sunday evenings with a rag-tag group of newly free agent journalists.

At this point, I really hope 60 Minutes ends because nobody will want to do a show under Bari Weiss's control. Let CBS burn if they are willing to go through all of this to appease dear leader.

In a world of Bari Weisses, be a Scott Pelley or a Sharyn Alfonsi.

Good for Scott Pelley

I was about to post about that. It's as heated as you'd expect:

Bari Weiss has really made a mess of herself in short time. No one believes she did this for journalistic reasons. I agree with Scott Pelley, as reported by the NYT: Mr. Pelley said that if Ms. Weiss planned to be more involved with editing “60 Minutes” stories, she should attend the early screenings and communicate directly with correspondents. “She needs to take her job a little bit more seriously,” he said. I also agree with this comment via Threads: Remember when Bari Weiss was just an intellectually lazy columnist whom none of her colleagues at the New York Times respected?

This is a bit of a rant. You've been warned. True journalism was adversarial by nature. It made enemies. It embarrassed people with power. It survived complaints, lawsuits, and angry phone calls because that’s the cost of doing the job. When journalism started optimizing for comfort—of executives, donors, politicians, or audiences—it stopped being journalism and became content moderation for adults. And yes, we the public helped kill it too. As we trained newsrooms to fear us. We punished nuance, rewarded outrage, and confused “this makes me uncomfortable” with “this must be false.” We demanded instant takes, moral certainty, and tribal loyalty. Then we act shocked when reporters stopped taking risks. So now we have journalism that is: Carefully balanced to the point of meaninglessness Bravely critical only of people already out of favor Fearless about history, timid about the present “Investigative” as long as it doesn’t threaten access The most damning part isn’t that a story like the CECOT piece can be pulled. It’s that almost no one (aka the higher ups) inside these organizations are surprised anymore. They sigh, shrug, and move on to the next safe segment. The newsroom rebels were replaced by compliance officers with journalism degrees. We didn’t lose true journalism because the government banned it. We lost it because everyone involved decided it was too inconvenient to keep. And that, depressingly, is the most human outcome of all. End of rant.

They won’t lose affiliates over it. It’s horrifically bad for anyone who values ethical journalism. But boards like this blow things out of proportion as the general public, writ large, sees and reacts to such things. Setting aside contractual terms as its own thorny issue, this will become background noise to the large chunk of the populace that’s not deeply engaged. That’s even more magnified during the busy holiday period when attention, already at a premium, is stretched to the breaking point. So much (bleep) comes at us so fast over the past year that before long, this will be a forgotten blip. I hate that. I do. But it’s reality. We need to understand how much of an ironclad grip this administration and its allies has on society. There is no Murrow, no Cronkite who will start the downfall. And it’s not going to be a spiked segment on the pre-Christmas 60 Minutes that breaks that grip. The list of times the resistance has hoped “this will be the thing” is long. And every single time, the result has been the same. The gravity of our situation can’t be overstated.

Aw, was hoping he'd stay till 80 like Chuck on WNBC, I grew up with Bill, he is the face of WABC, when he retires it will be truly an end of an era.

…and he’s fired.

It looks like Pelley may be on the way out.

This would be a great opportunity for NBC or ABC to copy the 60 Minutes formula and hire some of those folks to do reporting there. The way CBS is going could make this easy for NBC or ABC to do something like this, IF they want to.

Also out are Cecilia Vega and EP Tanya Simon, among others, as Nick Bilton (a former NYT columnist with no experience in TV news) is named the new EP

Sharyn Alfonsi is out at 60 Minutes https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/cbs-news-declined-renew-contract-60-minutes-correspondent-who-clashed-with-bari-2026-05-27/