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CBS News fired its longtime 60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley on Tuesday evening, amid an ongoing, tumultuous shakeup of the organisation under new leadership.
Newly installed CBS News chief Bari Weiss fired a string of staff at the news programme last week, including its longtime executive producer, and tapped a new editor, Nick Bilton, with no broadcast news experience.
The moves inflamed concerns the network's leadership would undermine independent journalism at the US's longest-running and highest-rated news programme.
At a staff meeting on Monday, Pelley accused Weiss of "murdering 60 Minutes", US media reported. Bilton called Pelley uncooperative in a termination letter sent to the host.
The BBC has contacted CBS News for comment.
In a statement after his firing, Pelley accused the organisation of becoming more politicised and forcing him to "inject falsehoods and bias" into his work.
"I've been told to include assertions that are unverified," he continued.
Pelley said "incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc".
In the letter terminating Pelley's contract on Tuesday, Bilton accused him of hijacking the staff meeting to disparage Bilton, his qualificatons and intentions with "remarkable incivility and contempt".
"Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you," Bilton wrote.
He sent a separate memo to 60 Minutes staff, saying he made multiple attempts to have direct conversations with Pelley and could not find common ground.
"That was not the path Scott chose," Bilton wrote, according to a letter published by CBS News.
CBS News has a partnership agreement with the BBC, meaning news content including video footage can be shared. BBC News is editorially independent of CBS.
The upheaval at the news organisation had been under way since August 2025 when David Ellison, an ally of US President Donald Trump, bought CBS's parent company, Paramount.
Ellison installed Weiss as the new editor-in-chief of CBS in October. She has outlined a new vision for CBS News in the digital era.
Weiss told staff in January that CBS News was relying too heavily on broadcast television and was "not producing a product that enough people want".
"The reality is twofold. First: Not enough people trust us. Not you. Us. As in: the mainstream media," she said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "Second: We are not doing enough to meet audiences where they are. So they are leaving us."
CBS has since laid off a number of employees - more then 6% of its workforce - and shut down its storied radio division. After the latest season of 60 Minutes ended on 17 May, the network fired Tanya Simon, its executive producer, and longtime correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, and hired Bilton to lead the show.
Vega said in a statement afterwards that executives had tried to influence stories and "insert political bias" and called it "dangerous for the show and dangerous for democracy".
"Today, I lost an amazing job," she wrote. "But I still have my integrity. To my former colleagues, continue to hold the line."
Pelley was the show's managing editor and anchor and had been a 60 Minutes correspondent for 22 years. He worked at CBS News for 37 years and departs with "a heart brimming with gratitude", he wrote in his statement.
Bilton is a former New York Times technology columnist and documentary filmmaker. He said after his hiring that Weiss was bringing him in while audiences for 60 Minutes were increasing - up 9% according to Nielson ratings - but that was not indicative of its longterm prognosis.
"It's still the No. 1 news broadcast in America. But history tells you disruption doesn't happen immediately when new technology comes along — it's usually a few years later," Bilton told CNBC. "We're on the precipice of this happening to broadcast TV.
