Scott Pelley's firing the equivalent of suicide by cop...

The media world is upset that Scott Pelley got fired from 60 Minutes by CBS on Tuesday.

The reality is, he wanted to get fired. His actions over the past several days, the past several weeks amount to suicide by cop.

For those that aren’t familiar with that phrase, it’s when someone goes out of their way to commit a crime in a way that makes sure the responding police officers kills the perp.

For those that don’t know, Scott Pelley was one of the main anchors of CBS’ main news magazine show 60 Minutes. I’ll admit, I have a lot of time for the program, I don’t like everything they do, but they do more in-depth reporting on TV than most.

Have they made mistakes?

Absolutely.

Their worst of late was their editing of the Kamala Harris interview during the 2024 presidential election. Harris had an awful interview and 60 Minutes went out of their way to edit things to make her look better.

They got caught because a teaser for the segment didn’t have the politically approved edit.

Playing in someone else’s sandbox…

Anyone who works for someone else rather than themselves also answers to someone else. Scott Pelley didn’t own 60 Minutes, he wasn’t an equity partner in CBS, he was an employee.

That means you answer to someone else.

When you answer to a boss, or bosses, you can’t publicly tell them that they are incompetent, not welcome, will never be welcomed at the place they oversee and that you will never work with them.

If you do that, you will be fired and Scott Pelley was fired for doing all of that.

As per the New York Post, a Monday morning meeting with 60 Minutes staff and new boss for the show Nick Bilton got tense with Pelley hijacking the meeting and yelling at Bilton criticizing CBS News boss Bari Weiss.

“She has no qualifications for her job,” Pelley said of Weiss, according to the source. “The changes that she’s made at the ‘Evening News’ have been catastrophic, so why should we expect that any of this is going to be any better?”

For the record, CBS Evening News has been in third place since the late 1980s and while Pelley increased the ratings slightly when he was anchor from 2011 through 2017, it still remained in third place.

The Post reports that Pelley didn’t just have words for Weiss, he also laid into Bilton.

Pelley likewise laced into Bilton, telling the new executive producer he had “slender” qualifications for his new job. He added that Bilton “will never be welcome here” and asked him why he took the job under those circumstances, a source said.

Okay, so the guy attacks the head of CBS News which oversees 60 Minutes, he attacks the new executive in charge of his show. He declined offers to meet for dinner to discuss the show over the weekend, he attacked management on Monday, he told them he wasn’t interested in working with Bilton or Weiss.

In what workplace can you do that an not expect to be fired?

I’ve had people come at me online saying that Pelley is an award winning journalist and never should have been fired. He may be an esteemed and award winning journalist, but attacking your employer never works out well.

If I publicly attacked my editor in chief at the Toronto Sun or other executives at Postmedia then I would be fired.

Bilton’s letter paints a different picture…

Nick Bilton’s letter firing has been shared widely by now and it lays out why Pelley was let go.

“I meant what I said in my letter last week to the 60 Minutes team: joining 60 Minutes is the honorof my career and I am grateful to be working alongside the people who have contributed to themost important television journalism brand this country has ever produced,” Bilton wrote to Pelley in his email confirming the firing.

Bilton went on to explain that he wanted to have a good relationship with Pelley, that he wanted to find a way to work together, but Pelley made that impossible.

“Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, myqualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt. I welcome a diversityof viewpoints and respectful debate among the team, but this was nothing of the sort. Yesterday’sperformative display of hostility—enacted in front of the staff instead of in a civil, privateconversation—demonstrated that you have no interest in contributing to the future success of theshow, or approaching my new tenure with a mind open to collaboration and progress,” Bilton wrote.

With that, Bilton explained that he hoped to fix things with the meeting that was called between Pelley and executives at the company on Tuesday, but that didn’t work out.

“Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. AndI have heard you. I therefore write on behalf of CBS News, Inc. (“CBS”) to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately,” Bilton wrote.

CBS going MAGA is overblown…

I’m not going to pretend to know Bari Weiss, though we know some of the same people. That said, I have met her when I attended an intimate lunch meeting in Toronto where I got to listen to her speak and chat with her briefly afterward.

What her critics are saying is that she is MAGA and moving CBS News in that direction at the behest of her new bosses.

My take on Weiss is that she is a fairly traditional liberal Jewish lesbian who doesn’t buy into woke politics. In some ways, I could say that she is a classic swing voter who backs Democrats on some things and Republicans on others.

Claiming that she is MAGA and that she is trying to move CBS in that direction is just false.

Pelley had choices…

Those supporting Pelley say he was exercising his free speech rights, that he was is too esteemed to be fired.

Again, if you are working for someone else, you need to follow their lead.

Pelley has the option of going on to be an independent journalist, he could start his own YouTube channel or Substack and if he does that he can say and think whatever he wants. What Pelley can’t do is stay at CBS while attacking CBS and expecting no repercussions.

Jim Acosta, Terry Moran and yes, Bari Weiss have all paved the way for Pelley on Substack.

If he has the courage of his convictions he will follow their paths. If he doesn’t, he’ll just whine from the sidelines and play the victim.