After Scott Pelley was kicked out 60 minutesthe longtime CBS News reporter offered a single sentence that captured the deepest fears of the show’s fans and the primary complaint of its detractors. Criticizing his new bosses—especially CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss—he said, “There’s a political bias that I’ve never seen. 60 minutes before, or on CBS News before.
Fans of CBS News fear political bias in the organization because they believe that President Trump wants to oppose it, and that its parent company will profit by appeasing him through its management.
Critics of CBS News have long argued that its reporters live in a liberal bubble that blinds them to their prejudices––a blindness manifested by claims that subtle political bias has never existed on the Internet, while, for decades, liberal concepts have informed its selection and execution of stories.
Both fans and critics have their points––and insights from both are needed if CBS News is to thrive, an outcome every American should want. 60 minutes often better than much of what passes for TV news, in spite of famous he misses. Improving it is easier than creating something half-decent. And it regularly reports on evil in government and more in ways that benefit us all. But even his best report will fail to have an impact on Americans who don’t believe it.
The current turmoil at CBS News began in 2024, when Trump sued its parent company, Paramount, for $10 billion, alleging that CBS News fraudulently edited an interview with Kamala Harris to help her in the presidential race by airing different versions of her answer on. Face the Nation and 60 minutes. The case was an absurd attack on the First Amendment freedom of the press. However Paramount agreed to settle, paying $16 million to cover Trump’s legal fees and donating the rest to his future presidential library––a settlement reached when he sought the Trump administration’s approval of the $8 billion sale to Skydance. Critics called it corruption, and that attitude was understandable. (Executives and spokespeople have vehemently denied the charge, and Paramount and the Federal Communications Commission denied any connection between the settlement and the merger.)
Now Paramount Skydance wants to buy Warner Brothers in another multibillion-dollar deal that will require various regulatory approvals. Trump has said he will get involved in the matter. Nothing could be more logical than that 60 minutes employees who suspect their new owners may also go to great lengths to please Trump, or avoid angering him. I can’t think of any new supervisor installed from above to provide 60 minutes comments on Trump-related stories without raising suspicion––a judgment that holds wherever one stands on Weiss, whom I know and love, or on discussions about details Weiss has given 60 minutes a story. As a rule, we should require journalists in large organizations to be vigilant against political meddling, even when, as outsiders, we cannot know whether or to what extent their concerns are justified.
Considering all of that context, why is a large group of Americans compelled by the notion that CBS News and even 60 minutes would it benefit Weiss or other outsiders to add diversity of opinion to his shop?
At the end of the week, Pelley gave one hour interview for Lulu Garcia-Navarro at New York Timestelling his side of what happened on the show. In a short clip that went viral online, Pelley commented on a meeting where Weiss asked senior staff, “Why does the country think you’re biased?”
Pelley said, “I wasn’t there, but that’s what I was told by my colleagues who were there. And they were shocked.” The reaction was “Uh-oh,” he continued, because “he didn’t provide any kind of metric. What’s your metric? Why do you think that? Do you have a poll? Is there market research? What are you talking about?” Pelley’s response was widely derided by conservatives and liberals, who saw him as unwittingly ignoring one of their long-standing concerns. I see why. In the era of mistrust of the mediaAmericans “see a ‘great deal’ (46 percent) or a ‘fair amount’ (37 percent) of political bias in news coverage.” Pew Research Center found in March 2025 (before Weiss joined) that CBS News is less trusted than ABC and NBC among Republicans and Democrats. Ad Fontes Media, which scores the reliability and confusion of media organizations, standards 60 minutes like skewing left.
None of that proves it 60 minutes is biased. But its reporters––like reporters in every news organization––should reflect on the various reasons why so many Americans to identify preference. Asking the staff to share why they think such attitudes exist is an appropriate question from any editor-in-chief. If this seemed shocking, then the workers would benefit from their ideologically different colleagues.
As opposing narratives about the crisis at CBS News become more difficult, the network needs more than ever staffers who understand why members of both sides of the culture war are compelled by different understandings, and why many Americans are unsure which narrative is closer to the truth. Among liberals, Pelley’s entire hour-long interview is celebrated as a rousing defense of 60 minutes. His appeal is easy to understand: Pelley is an experienced journalist who has bravely reported from war zones, not someone who spent his entire career in a studio. And he’s perfect for the camera: His voice, pace, and manner project gravity, and he shows emotion at times that make everything he says feel believable. But anyone compelled by Pelley’s narrative should try to understand why it failed to compel so many others.
Because I’m a satirist who takes a closer look at the words of anyone who seems good on television, Pelley’s account raised a lot of red flags. When asked earlier in the interview how it felt to be fired from the program he had worked for so long, Pelley said he couldn’t think of a better way to describe it than “like your partner got killed.” He said he felt sorry for “these people I left behind” at CBS News who are “still trapped in there.” He mentioned the firing of several key employees on the show “Black Thursday Massacre.” He said, “When someone deletes, murders, a large number of your family members, people are hurt, and shocked, in disbelief. And just desperate for some explanation.” This is language chosen for emotional effect, not accuracy––it seemed like he wanted to control my emotions, not inform me.
Pelley told it New York Times“I’ve been in war in Afghanistan. I’ve been in war in Iraq. I’ve been in a war zone in Ukraine many times, risking my life and the happiness of my family because of my dedication to broadcasting.” In fact, he was covering soldiers in combat, a distinction worth drawing, precisely because muddying the distinction is unnecessarily offensive to many Americans, who erupted in anger. Furthermore, neither fighting like a soldier nor reporting like a journalist makes one right in unrelated arguments.
Worse, parts of Pelley’s narrative were inconsistent. Pelley said that Nick Bilton, a journalist and filmmaker recently hired by Weiss to direct 60 minutes newsroom, introduced himself to the staff in an email, writing that he was “excited to tell the staff about the new crop of writers.” Pelley recounted, “When I saw that I thought, Well, they’ll find us all, eventually. That’s the plan. He put it in writing for all of us to see.” Later, when the two met face-to-face for the first time at a staff meeting, Pelley told Bilton that he would not be welcome on the show and that Weiss was “killing. 60 minutes,” adding, “He doesn’t like this place. He was brought to kill him.” When asked why he felt compelled to speak, Pelley said he realized he was the dominant person in the room. “Only I could do it,” he said. “None of them can be asked to take that risk.”
This shows that he felt it was dangerous to speak. But when asked if he went into a subsequent meeting with CBS management expecting to be fired, Pelley explained, “The furthest thing from my mind. It hadn’t occurred to me,” and that when he walked in and saw Weiss, he thought, “This is bad for him. He’s come to this meeting, and now I’m going to be able to ask him these questions.” He joked, “Some reporter I happened to be. I didn’t connect the dots. Was this meeting controversial? Yes. But. 60 minutes It is known for two things: the timer and the hard questions.
“You wanted to stay 60 minutes?” Garcia-Navarro asked.
“True,” Pelley replied. “I didn’t think this could happen.”
Looking at interviews, Pelley always seems convincing. But try to reconcile them all. He faced the dismissal of his colleagues as many family members were killed … but he “absolutely” wanted to continue working 60 minutesfor their “killers”? He believed that Weiss was hired to kill 60 minutes …but when he saw Weiss after the “murder” he had done, he thought, This is tough for him. He has come to this meetingand assume that their discussion would go well?
Pelley saw some of his co-workers being fired en masse, read an email that he saw as a written plan to fire them all, and attacked Weiss and Bilton in a staff meeting because he felt it would be unfair for his subordinates to take that risk…but it didn’t occur to him that he might be fired? Culture in 60 minutes it is said that likening your boss to a murderer and claiming that he has a secret agenda to destroy the show is a common form of debate where tough questions have always been possible… but the same boss asking questions about bias “shocked” everyone?
Perhaps everything Pelley said rang true for him in an emotional moment when he was reeling from being fired, not announcing as a writer. But I find it surprising that most media outlets reported the interview without acknowledging or mentioning its tensions and contradictions (although Garcia-Navarro expressed doubts in follow-up questions). Neglecting to scrutinize narratives that suggest our preconceived notions is one of the behaviors that cost journalists the public’s trust.
Among Americans, many people clearly disapprove of the job that Trump is doing and the job that the media is doing. It shouldn’t be difficult, within any major news organization, to raise the topic of bias (there are many types) or suggest changes that protect against left-wing bias, without being seen as a journalistic traitor who must be colluding with Trump to destroy it.
But Trump’s efforts to exert power over news organizations through their corporate parents make it harder than it would otherwise be to distinguish interference from critical opinion. And corporate hijacking or management upheavals always make reporters worried, because, as at Washington Postthey could easily end in mass layoffs and a flight of viewers.
Then again, when your news division is trailing its competitors, in an age where there is more competition for attention every year and the average age of your audience is 58, complacency is also dangerous. To survive and fulfill its mission, CBS News must achieve two goals that are not mutually exclusive, but which may prove unattainable: resisting political interference from the Trump administration. and convince more Americans that it’s worth believing—or at least watching and paying attention to.
