Fired CBS Icon Scott Pelley EXPOSES MAGA Media Bosses!
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What happened that led to Scott Pelley's firing from CBS and 60 Minutes?
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Welcome to Hot Topics. We have a long way to go and a short time to get there. If you remember Smoking the Bandit back in the 70s, if you're old enough, you know what I'm talking about. So we have a lot going on. We're starting pretty much on time this morning because let me just say this. This is breaking news. So tell your friends and family and everybody and all your colleagues and coworkers and whatever to join us this morning because I'm just going to say this, that I think that Scott Pelley is right. I think that Scott Pelley is right. And Scott Pelley, not only that, I'm going to say some things that's probably going to tick off a whole lot of people, maybe some journalists or whatever.
I didn't even shave because I had to get down here to get to, because I almost, if I had to drive here, I would have driven my car into the studio. But I ran down here, threw on some stuff. I did shower, but I did not shave. Okay, so let's talk about Scott Pelley. If you don't know Scott Pelley, he's an iconic CBS journalist. I think 37 years at the network and just a, you know, just a very stand-up, old school, just die-in-the-wool journalist, if you want to call it that, okay? And he was the host of CBS Evening News for a while. You see his face. You recognize him. And so I want to talk about Scott Pelley this morning and what he did and what it cost him and why I think he won and he wins anyways and why I think this is a lesson for every journalist out there.
Some people aren't going to like it, but you know me. I don't. I don't pull punches. The thumbnails on this video say that they fired him and that he's getting revenge. That is true. But the revenge is, that's not a lawsuit. Maybe that's coming. That's not a competing network. That could be coming. It's not a book deal or comeback tour as far as I know. The real truth is, and the revenge is the real truth. And the truth is already out. And so I'm going to give you the full picture here. This did not happen overnight. Scott Pelley has been watching Barry Weiss dismantle 60 Minutes since October. And in January, he said that she needed to take her job more seriously after she killed a story about Trump's deportation policies in El Salvador.
Remember the whole Seacott story, right? So hours before it was set to air, a story that Sharon Alfonsi had reported accurately, it had been vetted, it went through standards and practices. And All of it. I mean, I think he's right. And so it had been reported accurately. It had been vetted already. And then he said that Weiss killed it without attending a single screening, or she did, communicating directly with Al-Bansi at all. He watched, he waited, and then he kept showing up. As he said, he kept his powder dry. Yeah. And then last week, came what he called Black Thursday. That's when Sharon Alfonsi got fired. That's when Cecilia Vega got fired. That's when Tanya Simon, 30 years at 60 Minutes, was told that she had to be out of the building by 5 o'clock.
Dragan Milovich, pardon me for butchering your name, sent to HR to be let go because nobody could look at him in the eye. One by one by one by one, the people who built that program shown the door without any respect. It is disrespectful. And let me tell you, I'm the perfect person to tell you about it. And I'm going to lay into everybody here because I'm going to let you know how the media is. And the cowardice is in that media. And the people like Barry Weiss and the folks who are in management who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. Just because someone put you in that position, it doesn't mean that you're deserving of it. And if you have people who have been there for that long and it's the number one show and growing, then I think you need to learn from them.
I don't care what your ideology is. It shouldn't be about ideology. The show had just posted a 9% jump in viewers at the end of its 58th season. Nobody's doing that in traditional linear television anymore. Barry, why CBS? Unheard of growth.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What happened that led to Scott Pelley's firing from CBS and 60 Minutes?
0:15–8:28
2
What specific incidents with Barry Weiss and killed stories triggered staff unrest?
8:28–11:54
3
How did the 'Black Thursday' layoffs impact 60 Minutes' veteran reporters and producers?
11:54–29:29
4
What did Scott Pelley publicly accuse new management of doing to editorial integrity?
29:29–59:26
5
How did Dylan Byers explain the internal clash and the new leadership’s vision?
59:26–1:14:26
Speakers
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