According to Deadline, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr chimed in on the recent termination of 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley. Carr posted to X after Pelley’s recent interview with the New York Times.
“One of the reasons why trust in media is so low is because many legacy journalists are completely out of touch. You could not get away with that behavior at any run-of-the-mill job. It is revealing to see how blind some are to that,” Carr wrote, according to Deadline.
One of the reasons why trust in media is so low is because many legacy journalists are completely out of touch.
You could not get away with that behavior at any run of the mill job. It is revealing to see how blind some are to that.
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) June 7, 2026
Mxdwn has reported that Carr has been involved in the recent controversies surrounding Jimmy Kimmel. The FCC recently filed an early renewal order for ABC’s licenses. The investigation concerns the FCC’s equal-time rule, although it was launched just after controversial comments made by Kimmel. Last year, Kimmel made comments about about Charlie Kirk’s alleged shooter. When referring to whether Kimmel should be suspended Carr said, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” via CNN. Hours later, Kimmel was suspended indefinitely. He would eventually be reinstated after widespread calls to boycott Disney+.
In Pelley’s interview, he shared some of his experience working under CBS Editor-In-Chief Barry Weiss, stating that management has “subtle political bias” and “don’t know what they’re doing,” via Deadline.
According to Deadline, Pelley stated that Weiss allegedly asked him to portray the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in a manner that fit President Donald Trump’s narrative. Notably, by portraying protesters as “more violent”. Pelley said the request was “a thumb on the scale for the president’s version of events that I felt was a level of political influence that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News.”
According to Deadline, a spokesperson for CBS News released a statement in response to Pelley’s interview: “In an email, Bari made four points in the course of editorial back-and-forth. They had no political motivation and were proposed solely to make the piece as strong, fair, and accurate as possible. As is frequently the case in any newsroom that operates with collaboration, not everything she raised made it into the final piece.”
Pelley was fired after a verbal altercation on Tuesday with new executive producer Nick Bilton. Bilton addressed the situation in a letter to Pelley. “Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you. I therefore write on behalf of CBS News to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately,” Bilton wrote, according to Deadline.
Former 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens said Pelley, “stood up the way that I did a year ago and I couldn’t be prouder of him, and I know all the people at 60 Minutes couldn’t be prouder of him,” via Deadline. Owens resigned from 60 Minutes in April due to concerns of editorial independence.
According to Deadline, Weiss assured staffers she attempted to reconcile with Pelley. “Despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways. We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose.” Pelley has contested Weiss’s account of his dismissal.
According to mxdwn, Bilton also attempted to mitigate concerns in a memo Thursday. He assured staffers that 60 Minutes “will always make the story the north star” and that he had conversations with the three remaining correspondents.
According to Deadline, the altercation with Bilton occurred after string of dismissals, including Executive Producer Tanya Simon. Shortly after his termination, Pelley released a response: “The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well,” he wrote. He continued to state that “new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story,” and “incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc.”
SAG-AFTRA and WGAE spoke in support of workers’ right to discuss grievances, “Like all workers, journalists have the right under federal law to speak up on behalf of their colleagues about workplace concerns without fear of employer retaliation or punitive action. SAG-AFTRA is prepared to take and support any and all legal actions related to the company’s conduct over the last several weeks,” via Deadline.
Weiss took over as Editor-In-Chief of CBS News in October. Her tenure has seen a slew of exits and a controversial stalling of story about CECOT Prison in El Salvador. Weiss has been a long-standing critic of “woke culture” and left-wing media bias. After Weiss’s hiring, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison said, “Bari is a proven champion of independent, principled journalism, and I am confident her entrepreneurial drive and editorial vision will invigorate CBS News. We believe the majority of the country longs for news that is balanced and fact-based, and we want CBS to be their home,” via mxdwn.
Pelley’s exit comes at a time when Paramount Skydance is attempting to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit related to its upcoming merger with Warner Bros Discovery. One of the plaintiffs’ key arguments is the merger depriving viewers of “political diversity”. Paramount Skydance wrote in their motion, “their allegation that the mergers will deprive them of a ‘diversity’ of political ‘viewpoints’ in the news media are neither factually plausible nor the type of economic harm that can support an antitrust claim,” via mxdwn.