Lesley Stahl admits she has some survivor’s guilt for remaining at “60 Minutes.”
In a conversation with the New York Times, Stahl detailed how she had a promising call with Paramount chief executive David Ellison about honoring the journalist independence for “60 Minutes” going forward. Stahl – who chose to stay with the show alongside fellow veterans Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim – explained that her weekend call with Ellison helped to calm the seas that churned up by last week’s many firings, including Scott Pelley.
In a further effort to boost morale for those still with “60 Minutes,” Stahl had a champagne toast with staff Monday while detailing her conversations with Ellison from the weekend. There she admitted the toast had a feel of “survivor’s guilt.”
“My toast was, ‘to us,’ meaning the survivors,” Stahl told the NYT in a text. “Maybe ‘us’ with a twinge of survivor’s guilt.”
Stahl already spoke this week about how the tumult caused by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss choosing to fire Pelley, executive producer Tanya Simon, and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega marked one of the worst moments in her career.
“It’s just been obviously the hardest chapter of my career,” she told Puck.
Stahl added: “And it’s been a long career. It’s been over 50 years. This was by far the worst experience I’ve been involved in, or even witnessed. I mean, firing seven people, including the entire management team over here, plus reporters and producers … .”
Some of Ellison’s conversation with Stahl likely were inspired by accusations by Pelley after his firing. He issued a lengthy statement, where he suggested that 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.”
