FILE: Scott Pelley attending the CBS Upfront in New York.
(Invision/AP)
Former “CBS Evening News” vet Scott Pelley claimed in an interview Sunday that he was ousted from the anchor chair back in 2017 because he “wouldn’t stop complaining” about the news vision’s “hostile work environment.”
“I lost my job because I wouldn’t stop complaining to management,” Pelley said on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”
“Four or five years ago, I went to the president of the news division and explained to him that this hostile work environment couldn’t go on, for women and men,” Pelley added, referring to then-president David Rhodes. “And he told me if I kept agitating about that internally then I’d lose my job.”
The longtime Evening News anchor, who now works just as a correspondent for “60 Minutes,” said he went higher up the CBS totem pole — all the way to former CBS CEO Les Moonves, who left the network last year after getting hit with accusations of sexual misconduct — but he kept getting the same answer.
“I went to [Moonves], who told me he didn’t share my concerns,” Pelley said. “And so, having exhausted the possibilities in the news division, I went to the chairman of the CBS corporation who listened to me very concerned for an hour, asked me some penetrating questions about what was going on. I didn’t hear back from him but in the next opportunity in my contact, I was let go from the Evening News.”
Pelley called the last several years “a dark period” of “incompetent management” and hostile work environments within the news division. He said things have changed, though, and offered praise for his new higher-ups at CBS News — including president Susan Zirinsky and “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens.
“It’s all blue sky from here,” Pelley said. “I know these people and I know we’re on the right track.”
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