Newly installed 60 Minutes executive producer Nick Bilton appears to be trying to win over the show’s three remaining stars after a mass purge of veteran correspondents.
Bilton, who was hired by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, fired the show’s most-awarded correspondent, Scott Pelley, on Tuesday, a day after Pelley confronted him in front of the show’s staff over a string of firings and his plans for the storied news program.
Pelley is the fourth correspondent to leave the show since February, after Weiss fired Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega last Thursday and Anderson Cooper chose not to renew his contract.
The three remaining correspondents, Bill Whitaker, Lesley Stahl, and Jon Wertheim, met for an hour on Wednesday to discuss their futures at the program, according to Status. CBS News insiders are already speculating about who will be next to exit, The New York Post reports.
On Thursday, Bilton, 49, addressed the “trying and difficult past few days” in an email to staff, while shouting out the three remaining correspondents in an apparent effort to persuade them to stay, according to screenshots of the email posted by The New York Times’ Ben Mullin.
Bilton, who has reportedly been holding one-on-one meetings with staff after his first all-hands meeting ended in disaster, began by noting that he has been “in consultation with Lesley, Bill and Jon.”
He went on to praise 60 Minutes before trying to allay widespread concerns about the news program’s journalistic independence under him and Weiss, an anti-woke opinion journalist installed by Paramount Skydance CEO and Trump-friendly billionaire David Ellison.
“The foundation of 60 Minutes is its journalistic independence,” Bilton wrote. “We will always pursue stories without fear or favor. We will always make the story the North Star—not relationships nor politics nor anything else.”
“And it should go without saying, but l’ll say it anyway: We will never be instructed by the ownership of the company on those stories,” the former tech journalist added.
Bilton has no TV experience and raised concerns that he would fundamentally change the program’s format as a Sunday night weekly broadcast after pitching a “new approach” in an introductory note to colleagues last Friday.
“Sunday night works,” he wrote, seemingly trying to ease those fears, before adding, “I am a curious person and I love stories, and as executive producer I will shape the show writ large. I’ll bat around ideas with you, I’ll dive into scripts and edits with you, and I will sign off on pieces.”
He concluded his note by lavishing his last three correspondents with praise.
“Lesley, Bill and Jon are core to this show’s success,” he wrote. “They have sat across from the most powerful people in the world and refused to blink. Audiences trust them because they have proved it, story by story, for decades. Working with them is a privilege and every journalist’s dream.”
Stahl, 84, and Whitaker, 74, the show’s oldest correspondents, have long been rumored to be considering retirement. Wertheim is 55 years old.
Bilton’s tone is a marked departure from his explosive termination letter to Pelley on Tuesday, after Pelley told him he would “never be welcome” at 60 Minutes and said that Weiss is “murdering” the legendary news program during an explosive Monday staff meeting.
In the termination letter, Bilton accused Pelley, 68, of “misconduct” after the Monday morning “ambush,” accusing the longtime correspondent of putting on a “performative display of hostility” and of having no interest in “contributing to the future success” of 60 Minutes.
