In his first interview since his departure from 60 Minutes, veteran broadcaster Scott Pelley alleged that CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss and the network’s leadership exhibited “subtle political bias.”
Pelley also expanded on his comment from last week about the firing during his recent interview.
Scott Pelley says CBS boss asked him to ‘inject falsehoods’ in a political story
Scott Pelley was fired by CBS News on June 2, 2026. This was after a contentious staff meeting. He spoke about the event in a new interview with the New York Times.
During the interview, Pelley alleged that CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss and the network’s leadership demonstrated “subtle political bias” that influenced his program. He also addressed comments he made last week after learning of his departure. At the time, Pelley claimed that the network “instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story.” He added that, regarding one report, “the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.”
In the new interview, Pelley said the report he referenced aired in February. According to Pelley, it focused on the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. He alleged that, before the segment aired, CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss sent a note to the show’s then-executive producer, Tanya Simon.
“Two of the things in the email include, can we make the protesters look more violent? Now, I’m paraphrasing. I don’t have the quote, but that’s what was communicated to me. And the other thing, Renee Good’s car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer,” Pelley told The New York Times.
“On the video, you see the officer standing slightly off the front of the car. And you clearly see Ms. Good’s wheels turned completely as far as they will go, away from the officer. But he shoots her in the head, kills her, and says something about her that I can’t repeat in polite company,” he further said while describing the incident.
Pelley also described how he responded as the broadcast deadline approached. He said he did not make the changes he claimed Weiss had requested and chose not to debate the matter. “Our deadline was noon. It’s now almost 5 o’clock. That’s dangerous as hell. So I decided that I wouldn’t do those things. I wasn’t going to get in a debate about it. I wasn’t going to call Bari Weiss about it, I was just going to refuse to make those changes,” he said.
“It occurred to me that maybe Bari Weiss didn’t see the broadcast and didn’t realize that those changes hadn’t been made,” he said. “But that’s how that happened. There was 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.”
During the interview, Pelley also criticized Weiss and the leadership of the news division. He described the situation as “incompetence.”
Originally reported by Sourav Chakraborty on ComingSoon.
