Former “60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Kroft sounded the alarm over changes at the storied newsmagazine one day after Scott Pelley was fired from the program, arguing that the recent moves under Bari Weiss amount to “journalistic interference.”
“This is journalistic interference,” Steve Kroft told PBS “News Hour” co-anchor Geoff Bennett on an upcoming edition of the program. “It makes no business sense whatsoever. It’s the highest rated news program on television, and it has been that way for more than 50 years. The audience was up about 9% last year. Why would you mess with that?”
NEW: Former 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft calls the changes under Bari Weiss "disastrous." He adds: "This is journalistic interference. It makes no business sense whatsoever. It's the highest rated news program on television, and it has been that way for more than 50…
— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) June 3, 2026
Kroft has been extremely vocal about the dustup at CBS News and “60 Minutes” this last week. On Friday, the former correspondent spoke to the Status newsletter about the shakeups.
“Since I retired, I often wondered what would happen to ’60 Minutes,’” Kroft said. “But I never expected it would be executed by the president of the United States. There is no smoking gun. But [Trump’s] fingerprints and DNA are all over this. He’s been making threats against ’60 Minutes’ and how he wanted it gone. And he finally got his wish.”
In a call Wednesday morning to staffers, Weiss defended her decision to fire Pelley saying that he broke a foundation of “trust and mutual respect.”
“Before we get into it, I need to address what’s transpired in our newsroom over the past two days and what is making news,” Weiss told staffers at the beginning of the call, TheWrap learned. “I know I speak for myself, and I hope I speak for everyone here, when I say that I’m only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect. We cannot do our work without it.”
She continued: “That foundation was broken on Monday, and despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways.”
Pelley did not think Weiss was being completely honest about how their meeting went that led to his firing.
“I’m saddened to see the transcript of the CBS News morning editorial meeting. Bari Weiss knows what she said is not true,” he said in a statement. “In the meeting on Tuesday, in which I was effectively fired, there was no effort of any kind to ‘find a way back,’ as Weiss said in the editorial meeting. At no point did anyone in the Tuesday meeting suggest that there could be steps taken by either side that would lead to a resolution. Weiss and Tom Cibrowski were openly hostile from the start. ‘Firing’ was raised by Cibrowski in the first 15 seconds. No CBS executive, at any time, suggested ‘a way back.’ To say so now is disingenuous. And they know it.”
