Scott Pelley said bari weiss 60 minutes management interfered with a story about the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti hours before it was set to air. He said an email from Bari Weiss asked for changes that included, “can we make the protesters look more violent?”
Pelley, who spent 37 years at CBS News, said the episode came within 19 minutes of not making it to air. On June 3, he posted that “New management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story.”
Weiss and the Good story
In a sit-down interview with Lulu Garcia-Navarro published Sunday, Pelley said Weiss personally interfered with CBS’s coverage of the ICE officer who killed Renée Good in Minneapolis. He said another requested change was to describe Good as driving toward the officer, but CBS Evening News video of her final moments does not show that.
Pelley said, “My impression at the time was that she was putting a thumb on the scale on behalf of the administration.” He also said Weiss was “Constantly looking out for the views of the president.”
CBS and Bari Weiss
CBS responded that Weiss’ comments “had no political motivation and were proposed solely to make the piece as strong, fair, and accurate as possible.” Pelley rejected the idea that politics were the main issue. “The bigger problem, Lulu, frankly, is not any kind of political influence,” he said. “The problem was the incompetence.”
The episode at issue was about the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti. Pelley said, “You don’t break a deadline,” after describing how close the program came to missing airtime. CBS has pulled 60 Minutes segments before, including one in December about the Trump administration deporting people to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.
David Ellison and CBS
David Ellison installed Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS last October after buying her website, The Free Press, for a reported $150 million. Pelley said he was fired last week after coming into conflict with Weiss, ending a CBS run that lasted 37 years.
For viewers, the immediate issue is whether the program’s editorial process can withstand last-minute changes under new management. Pelley’s account says the dispute was not just about wording, but about whether a politically sensitive story would reach air on time.
