Tony Dokoupil paid tribute to fired “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley on “CBS Evening News” Wednesday night, praising him as “a journalist who valued truth at all costs.”
“When I started at CBS, Scott Pelley was in this very chair, and still doing a dozen stories a year for ’60 Minutes.’ And amid all of that, meeting every new correspondent to share his view of the mission here,” he said. “He believed freedom of the press, to quote [James] Madison, was ‘the right that guaranteed all the others.’ And the stakes are always that high and that, if you’d made it to CBS News, you were among the best in the world. He worked every single day to live up to that standard.”
As the segment on Pelley’s termination continued, the award-winning correspondent’s most memorable moments from his time at CBS News played, including his 9/11 coverage, war reporting in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Great Recession.
In a voiceover, Dokoupil added: “He was in some ways a man from another era, and that’s not a knock. He didn’t watch the competition, he said, because he knew who he was. A journalist who valued truth at all costs. And always kept alive the memory of colleagues killed in the field — a reminder that his chosen line of work could be a dangerous one.”
Dokoupil also applauded Pelley for the changes he made during his tenure at “CBS Evening News,” where he served as anchor between 2011 and 2017.
“But Pelley also made one major break from the past,” Dokoupil noted. “He changed the signs around here. Under the CBS Evening News logo, where Scott Pelley’s own name would have been, he instead wrote, ‘The CBS Evening News with all of us.’ Well, Scott, from all of us, thank you.”
Watch Dokoupil’s commentary in full below.
Dokoupil’s comments came a day after Pelley was terminated from “60 Minutes.” As we reported, the longtime correspondent met with CBS News leadership to discuss a Monday clash, in which he accused editor-in-chief Bari Weiss of “murdering” the program.
“Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear,” “60 Minutes” executive producer Nick Bilton wrote in a letter sent to Pelley and reviewed by TheWrap. “And I have heard you. I therefore write on behalf of CBS News to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately.”
He also accused Pelley of hijacking his meeting and putting on a “performative display of hostility,” which Bilton felt “demonstrated that you have no interest in contributing to the future success of the show.
Bilton then broke the news of Pelley’s exit with the “60 Minutes” team, voicing his “unyielding support” for the remaining employees.
In response to his firing, Pelley issued a lengthy statement, where he suggested that Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison was “casting aside” the news program to curry favor with Donald Trump. He also reiterated accusations he made to The New York Times earlier on Tuesday, that “new management [had] instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story.” He also alleged that politicians had been given “control over ’60 Minutes’ interviews.”
Weiss defended the organization’s decision to fire Pelley on a Wednesday morning call with staffers, saying that Pelley broke a foundation of “trust and mutual respect” when he railed against Weiss and new “60 Minutes” executive producer Bilton during the staff-wide meeting on Monday. Though, Weiss did say that she tried to “engage with [Pelley] and to find a way back.”
Pelley has since claimed that this was a “not true” summary of events, adding in a new statement, “No CBS executive, at any time, suggested ‘a way back.’ To say so now is disingenuous. And they know it.”
