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The Pelley Drama Continues and the Audience Is Beginning to Wane, As CBS Employees Continue to Complain

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Jun 08, 2026
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Legalized Press-titution – THE NEW YORK TIMES

  • If she walked out and let him filibuster for five minutes, it may not have been any more self-congratulatory.

It is touted as the first interview with Scott Pelley following his ouster from CBS. (We just need to ignore his numerous official statements he released last week.) Scott sat in with Lulu Garcia-Navarro to discuss all of the melodrama he went through last week. To no one’s surprise, Pelley was full of self-importance and puffery, but the level he took it to was impressive. Some of the highlights:

  • Claims Bari Weiss wanted the production to stipulate that Rene Nicole Goode targeted an ICE officer with her vehicle, which Pelley called incorrect. That we saw body cam footage of the agent being struck seems to escape his purview.

  • Pelley expressed surprise at his firing. He spent days declining to meet with executives and claimed Bari Weiss was murdering 60 Minutes, but the veteran newsman never saw this coming. He abjectly refused to sit with management, then says he was expecting an explanation…from the people he refused to speak with.

  • He said being fired was like seeing his wife murdered.

  • He claimed that he was in the service by covering wars as a journalist.

Seriously, take those pull-quotes, if for no other reason than to listen to five minutes of the Pelley – painfully hesitating – delivery of speech – that aggravates – no end.

Reporting on the Mirror – (formerly) CBS NEWS

  • This will not sway the minds of those calling you an elitist.

Shortly after his firing, Pelley posted on IG an image of him captaining his schooner.


Reporting on the Mirror – CBS NEWS

  • Suggestion: Try not to feed the monster you are complaining about.

Brian Stelter arrives with some inside information from CBS News staff: They are getting very despondent about the fact that they are constantly in the news. He reports on this condition based on conversations he had with numerous staffers “all weekend long.”

Yeah…about that, gang…

While I am not a veteran of television news, like you stalwarts at CBS, can I offer a humble suggestion? How about trying to refrain from discussing every nuance at your network with other people in the news industry?

Ever since Bari Weiss arrived, there has been a steady stream of emails leaked or internal meetings transcribed and disseminated. Hell, the infamous Monday Meeting where Scott Pelley was mouthing off was reported on in a matter of an hour or so, with notes soon released, and then a recording coming out that same afternoon.

Try this out: If you do not spend the weekend warbling to Brian Stelter about how you are sick of always being in the news, he will not be out here detailing how you are sick of being in the news to the news-consuming public!

Gilded Reframe – ABC NEWS

  • Is enforcement considered the new retribution?

David Muir comes out with a report on the John Bolton court case, where the former Trump administration official is facing 18 charges for possessing classified documents. This is reported as a result of “President Trump’s retribution campaign,” according to correspondent Pierre Thomas.

Moving past that “retribution” would entail the president first being targeted, the claim faces a pair of harsh realities: Bolton is set to plead guilty to the charges, and the investigation into his activity began under…Joe Biden’s term.

Both Kinds of Standards – NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO

  • Sooooo…no one internally could be found to do this?

David Folkenflik came out with an announcement that, after a series of layoffs and restructuring of management over the past couple of weeks, his network just hired Chief Content Officer Nadine Zylstra.

Nadine has an impressive enough resume, hailing from Pinterest, was the global head of YouTube Originals, and the Sesame Workshop.

She sounds excited to take on this new role, but as Tim Graham points out, there is, following all the complaints made of Bari Weiss over the past year, a curious lack of criticism about this decision.

Pre-Written Field Reports – NBC NEWS

  • I’m sure Kristen thought rehashing 2020 election details was pertinent today.

There is a lot of talk about President Trump walking out of his interview with Kristen Welker. The Meet the Press hostess angered Trump with talk of election fraud being unproven, and after half an hour, he decided he had had enough and walked out.