Veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl has revealed the jarring way CBS leadership fired half a dozen journalists and producers from the legendary news program.
“This was by far the worst experience I’ve been involved in, or even witnessed,” Stahl, 84, told Puck’s William D. Cohan in a new interview.
“I mean, firing seven people, including the entire management team over here, plus reporters and producers…” she continued, her voice trailing off.
In her conversation with Cohan, Stahl shed new light on “Black Thursday,” when CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss simultaneously fired correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, executive producer Tanya Simon, Simon’s deputy Draggan Mihailovich, as well as segment producers Guy Campanile and Matthew Polevoy.
Stahl said she was preparing to board a flight to Madrid to work on a segment with Campanile when news of the firings came down.
Campanile, who was on his way to JFK when he learned he was being let go, was nonetheless given the option by CBS bosses to take the trip and produce the story.
“Oh God, this was awful,” Stahl said.
“They fired everybody who was around Tanya. We don’t know why. He doesn’t know why. He has no idea why he was fired. None,” Stahl said, explaining her thinking at the time. “And I have no idea why he was fired.”
The purge also caught other 60 Minutes journalists off guard, even if staff knew a broader shake-up had been “in the works for a while,” Stahl noted.
She explained that Simon, a 30-year veteran of the program, had gone into her meeting with Weiss expecting to discuss plans for the show’s upcoming fall season.
“Instead, she was fired in the three-minute meeting,” Stahl said, “and was told that she and Draggan had to clear out of their offices by five o’clock that day.”
Stahl was in Spain when Scott Pelley, 68, confronted Simon’s replacement, Nick Bilton, in an explosive all-hands meeting at the New York office on Monday, pressing him on the firings and telling him that he would “never be welcome” at 60 Minutes.
Stahl said Pelley had been particularly angered by CBS leadership’s refusal to explain the reasons behind the firings.
“That’s what he was agitated about,” she told Cohan. “‘Tell us why they were fired.’ That was his question. He never got an answer. They felt he was insubordinate for asking that question.”
Bilton, a tech journalist with no TV experience, fired Pelley the day after their confrontation.
CBS did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
On Friday, Stahl and fellow correspondents Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim announced in a memo to staff that they would remain on the program while blasting the CBS bosses.
“We’re still deeply upset by the firings of Tanya and Draggan, strong leaders who everyone respected,” they wrote. “As far as we can tell—because no explanation has ever been offered—they were expelled because they fought for our 60 Minutes values and stood up to protect our independence and integrity.”
The three correspondents—the only ones remaining after the show began the year with seven—blasted CBS management for treating the fired staff “so shabbily, with such indecency.”
They said that their decision to stay with the program should not be “construed as an endorsement of the existing power structure.”
They wrote, “Here’s why we are staying: We don’t want to see 60 Minutes die.”
“We have been grieving because this whole mess has wounded and damaged the broadcast. We want to stay and fight, try to repair and preserve our reputation,” they wrote.
The trio’s decision came after Bilton, 49, used an email to staff to try 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.
