Scott Pelley claimed that he has experienced “no corporate interference” at “60 Minutes” under its new Paramount leadership.
While accepting his recognition as a Walter Cronkite Award honoree for his coverage of the Trump administration’s threats to major law firms, the career journalist said that after the Paramount-Skydance merger and the departures of EPP Bill Owens and Wendy McMahon as president of the news division, “all of our stories got on the air.”
Paramount settled the Trump lawsuit against “60 Minutes” for $16 million and, weeks later, Skydance committed to establishing an ombudsman in the news division as it sought the FCC approval of the transaction. Pelley noted that, during this turbulent time at the corporation, “60 Minutes” was able to act with the freedom of speech it always had.
“I will say that in that season, last season, all of our stories got on the air. We got them all on. We got them all on the air with an absolute minimum of interference, nothing that anyone in this room would have been alarmed by,” he said.
“We were all concerned at ’60 Minutes’ about what that meant,” he added. “It’s early yet, but what I can tell you is we are doing to same kinds of stories with the same kind of rigor, and we have experienced no corporate interference of any kind, so that has been a tremendous way to start this season.”
The honoree noted though that the exits of Owens and McMahon was a loss not only for “60 Minutes” but for the journalism industry at large.
“These were not managers; these were leaders in our profession,” he said. “The most outstanding leaders in journalism I have ever known in my career, and it was heartbreaking to lose them.”
Pelley joked that there was a time when freedom of the press was in a worse state than it is today — in 1798, when the Sedition Act was passed, making it illegal to speak out against the government.
“Madison wrote that freedom of the press is the right that guarantees all the others,” he said. “I am so honored to be in a room with my colleagues, who are working so hard everyday, taking risks everyday to make sure that right endures.”
Watch his acceptance speech here:
.@60Minutes Correspondent Scott Pelley: "We are all experiencing trouble getting people to appear on our broadcast because of the fear that has spread across the country." pic.twitter.com/hgPQHT1Rgt
— CSPAN (@cspan) December 12, 2025
