Scott Pelley spent 37 years at CBS News and became one of the familiar faces of 60 Minutes. He also anchored and managed CBS Evening News from 2011 to 2017.
Longevity can bring wisdom, but it also can convince a person who reads a script that the chair is his.
Pelley’s exit from CBS looks a lot less like martyrdom and a lot more like Job 101 catching up with him late in life.
Pelley lost his job after a tense staff meeting with Bari Weiss, editor-in-chief of CBS News, and Nick Bilton, executive producer of 60 Minutes. The meeting was intended as an introduction of Bilton to the staff, but Pelley mounted his holy soapbox and used the moment to attack leadership, complain about the direction of the program, and question Bilton’s qualifications.
Reports described Pelley accusing Weiss of “murdering” the show and telling Bilton he had “slender qualifications.”
The man/boy was handed his walking papers shortly afterward.
Anybody who has ever held a job knows the rule; it’s not complicated: don’t torch your boss in front of the company and then act shocked, SHOCKED! when the company removes your badge. Pelley had every right to dislike the actions management made, and he also had every right to raise concerns through normal channels.
Instead, he chose a public confrontation, then reached for victimhood like a man who confused tenure with ownership.
Then came the interviews.
The New York Post shared his ludicrous interview with the New York Times, breaking down in tears about his bravery.
Jobless news veteran Scott Pelley broke down in tears as he claimed the hysterical tirade that got him fired from “60 Minutes” was a response to the “murders” of his “family” in a “Black Thursday massacre” at the show.
Pelley, 68, broke down several times during an interview with the New York Times as he discussed for the first time being axed from CBS News after nearly four decades at the network.
He conceded that he had been hyperbolic to accuse new network boss Bari Weiss of murdering “60 Minutes” — just to go even further, claiming it was the staff themselves that she murdered.
“It’s like your spouse being murdered,” he said at one point of the rejigging of staff with newcomers in to take charge at the show.
“No one saw the Black Thursday massacre coming,” Pelley told the paper of the network laying off senior staff, including executive producer Tanya Simon.
“It’s like your spouse being murdered.”
Who in the everlasting wide world of sports talks like that?!
Hellbound and Down 